Chapter 2: The Floral Purse
The grand foyer descended into a tense, suffocating stillness.
""Diego, you're losing your mind,"" Paulina said, forcing a nervous, brittle laugh. ""It’s a button. Someone probably stole it from your father’s estate sale last year.""
Diego ignored her entirely. He turned back and crouched before the little girl, adjusting his posture so he was at her eye level. The terrifying aura of the corporate magnate melted away, replaced by a gentleness that surprised even the household staff watching from the archways.
""What is your name, little one?"" Diego asked softly.
""Mia,"" the girl murmured, hugging the floral purse tighter against her small chest. ""My mommy said... if I get lost, I must find the iron gate with the golden bird and give the button to the man inside.""
""Where is your mommy, Mia?""
Mia pointed a tiny finger toward the outer driveway beyond the massive glass doors. ""She was sitting on the stone bench outside the big gate. She fell asleep, and she wouldn't wake up. Her hands were very cold.""
A cold dread seized Diego's chest. He stood up abruptly, shouting across the foyer to his head of security. ""Marco! Dispatch the private medical team to the front gate immediately! Call Dr. Alverez! Now!""
Diego scooped Mia into his arms. The little girl weighed next to nothing; her small arms instinctively looped around his neck, burying her face into the fabric of his dark suit. An unfamiliar, overwhelming warmth bloomed in his chest—an instinctual, primal surge of paternal recognition.
Paulina stepped into his path, her face flushed with indignation. ""Diego, if you walk out that door for a homeless woman, the Sterling-Navarro merger is finished! My father will pull every bank credit line your shipping lines rely on!""
Diego stopped, holding the child tightly with one arm. He looked at Paulina not with fury, but with profound, dismissive pity.
May you like
""Paulina,"" Diego said calmly, ""you could burn every ship I own, and you still wouldn't equal a single tear from this child. Take your things and leave my home.""
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