Kara had never packed so fast in her life. The penthouse was silent, suffocating in its luxury, but her hands moved with a speed fueled by fear and desperation. The contract lay torn on the bed, a jagged line splitting Xavier's signature. She didn't care. She had to get out.
Tears blurred her vision as she shoved the last of her clothes into a duffel bag. Her heart thundered with every beat, echoing Xavier's final warning in her ears: "You break the rules, you lose everything." But what if she already had?
The test results sat on the vanity. Positive. Kara was pregnant.
She hadn't meant for it to happen. One reckless night. One moment of weakness. He had held her like he meant it, touched her like he needed her. She believed him for a second just long enough to break the rules.
But she knew Xavier. If she stayed, he would see it as betrayal. He wouldn't forgive her. He didn't know how.
She slipped out just before dawn.
The city was still asleep as she flagged a cab to the airport, clutching her stomach. She didn't know where she was going. Just... away. Somewhere he couldn't find her. Somewhere she could raise their child in peace.
She watched the skyline vanish in the rearview mirror, and with it, the last piece of her old life.
She whispered to the tiny life inside her, "It's just you and me now."
Kara disappeared.
No calls. No trace. No farewell.
Xavier searched.
For weeks, months he searched. Not because of love. Not because of heartbreak. But because it didn't make sense. Kara wouldn't just run. She wasn't weak. She was a fighter.
So why did she leave?
Security footage was wiped.
Her phone, disconnected.
The money he transferred to her account? Never touched.
Xavier burned through every lead. But after three months, even the best investigators came back empty-handed.
She was gone. Like smoke through his fingers.
His world returned to its cold, calculated routine. Business thrived. He dominated boardrooms. Hosted galas. Smiled for cameras.
But at night, when the city slept and the penthouse turned dark, he stared at the empty side of the bed and wondered what he missed.
He never knew he was a father.
Not yet.
Kara settled in a quiet coastal town. Small, peaceful. Anonymous. She changed her name, wore her hair differently, and told no one about her past.
She found work at a local bookstore. Saved every penny. Rented a tiny house with peeling walls but a soft garden out back.
There, under the pale glow of the moon, her daughter was born.
Zia.
A name that meant light, because she was all Kara had left in the dark.
Zia had Xavier's eyes. His smirk. His quiet intensity.
Every day, Kara saw him in her daughter's laugh and her stubbornness.
She didn't regret leaving. But she did mourn the life that could've been.
And as Zia grew, the past stayed buried.
Until fate cruel and unrelenting came knocking five years later.