Chapter 1
Chapter 1
I boarded a Christmas Eve flight furious about a $780 million deal, convinced nothing mattered more than getting to Denver before midnight. Then a red crayon rolled against my shoe, a little boy looked up at me with my exact green eyes, and three rows later I saw the woman I had once planned to marry holding a little girl who looked just like me.
My name is Damon Prescott, and until that moment, I thought I understood the cost of ambition.
“Sorry,” the little boy said, reaching toward the crayon. “It escaped.”
He couldn’t have been more than two or three. Sandy-brown hair curled above his forehead, and when he smiled, a small dimple appeared in his left cheek.
I had the same dimple.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Luke.”
Then I heard a woman’s voice behind him.
“Luke, sweetheart, come back here.”
My chest tightened before I even turned around.
I knew that voice.
Cassandra Hayes stood in row twenty-eight with a little girl balanced against her hip. Her hair was shorter now, her face more tired, but I would have recognized her anywhere.
The little girl had my eyes too.
“Damon,” Cassandra whispered.
I stared from Luke to the child in her arms and started calculating dates automatically.
Three years since Cassandra and I had broken up.
The twins looked about two and a half.
Our last night together had been almost exactly nine months before they would have been born.
The truth hit me so hard I gripped the seat beside me.
“Who are these children?”
Cassandra went pale.
Before she could answer, a flight attendant touched my arm and ordered me back to first class because the plane was preparing to depart.
“We’re going to talk,” I told Cassandra.
“Not in front of them.”
Luke looked between us.
“Mama, do you know the angry man?”
Her answer cut deeper than I expected.
“I used to.”
I returned to first class only because aviation regulations managed to accomplish what executives, investors, and employees rarely could.
They made me sit down.
My phone vibrated before airplane mode.
The acquisition team is waiting in Denver. We need your signature before midnight or Merritt Systems may accept Calder’s offer.
Three hours earlier, that message would have consumed me.
Prescott Technologies had spent nine months preparing the $780 million acquisition. The medical platform we wanted could transform neonatal care, something painfully personal to me after losing my infant sister years earlier.
But now two children with my eyes were sitting twenty rows behind me.
As we climbed into the dark Oregon sky, I looked through the gap between seats.
Luke had both palms against the window.
The little girl—Violet, I heard Cassandra call her—held a gray stuffed elephant against her chest.
Then turbulence struck.
The plane dropped suddenly, and Violet began crying.
“It’s okay, baby,” Cassandra soothed. “The clouds are just dancing with us.”
My throat tightened.
She had always done that.
When thunder scared us, she called it clouds moving furniture. When we couldn’t afford electricity, she lit candles and called it indoor camping.
I unbuckled my seat belt.
The flight attendant appeared immediately.
“Sir, sit down.”
“There are children back there.”
“There are many children on this flight.”
“My children may be back there.”
For the first time, her expression softened.
“Then stay seated until the captain turns off the sign.”
Those twelve minutes felt longer than any board meeting of my life.
The moment the light disappeared, I stood.
I walked to row twenty-eight while Cassandra watched me approach with one arm protectively around the twins.
An elderly woman across the aisle stopped pretending not to listen.
I stopped beside Cassandra.
“May I sit?”
Her jaw tightened.
Then she shifted just enough to let me into the empty seat.
Luke stared at me curiously.
Violet hid behind her stuffed elephant.
I lowered my voice.
“Cassandra, I need the truth.”
She looked down at the children.
Then back at me.
“They’re yours.”
For several seconds, the entire plane seemed to vanish around me.
I had missed their births.
Their first steps.
Their first words.
Christmas mornings I never knew existed.
My voice barely worked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cassandra’s eyes filled with tears.
“I tried.”
PART 2: Cassandra looked at me with tears trembling in her eyes. “I called your office, Damon. I emailed you. I even went to your apartment, but your assistant told me you were in London and couldn’t be disturbed.” I remembered that winter clearly, when I had worked eighteen-hour days preparing for a merger. I had assumed Cassandra left because she wanted a simpler life without me. Now I wondered how many times she had tried to tell me the truth.
“I was pregnant when we broke up,” she whispered. “I found out two weeks later, and by then, you had changed your number.” I wanted to defend myself, but the words died before reaching my lips. I had changed numbers after a security issue and never thought about who might lose the ability to reach me. Somehow, that small decision had become a wall between me and my own children.
“Why didn’t you keep trying?” I asked, my voice breaking. Cassandra stared at me in disbelief. “I was twenty-six, Damon, pregnant with twins, working two jobs, and trying to pay rent. I couldn't keep begging someone who had made it clear his career came first.” Her words hurt because I knew she wasn't entirely wrong.
Luke tugged at her sleeve. “Mama, why is that man sad?” Cassandra gently brushed his curls away from his forehead. “Because sometimes grown-ups realize they made mistakes.” I looked at my son, desperate to touch his shoulder, but I was afraid even that small gesture would frighten him.
Then Violet dropped her stuffed elephant, and I bent to retrieve it. When I handed it back, she studied my face with startling seriousness. “You have eyes like mine,” she announced. Cassandra closed her eyes, as if those innocent words had finally broken something she had spent years holding together.
My phone vibrated again. Denver was waiting, and the acquisition deadline was less than two hours away. For the first time in my career, I didn't care whether Calder won the deal. I looked at Cassandra and asked the question I should have asked years ago.
“What do you need from me now?”
She took a shaky breath. “Don't promise them the world tonight, Damon. Just don't disappear tomorrow.” I looked at Luke and Violet, then silenced my phone without answering another message. Outside the window, snow began drifting through the darkness, and I realized that the most important meeting of my life wasn't waiting in Denver.
It was sitting beside me on a Christmas Eve flight, wondering whether their father would finally stay.
PART 3: I sat beside Cassandra for the rest of the flight, listening as Luke explained his favorite dinosaurs and Violet showed me every animal on her stuffed elephant. I wanted to memorize every word, every laugh, every tiny expression that reminded me of myself. When Luke asked whether I had children, my heart nearly stopped. “I do now,” I answered quietly, and Cassandra looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite understand.
She didn't smile, but she didn't correct me either. Instead, she told me how she had delivered the twins during a snowstorm, with her sister holding her hand because she had nobody else to call. Luke had arrived first, screaming loudly enough to make the nurses laugh, while Violet had taken several frightening seconds to cry. Cassandra remembered every detail, including the moment she realized she would have to become both parents to two little people who deserved better than the circumstances they had been given.
“I searched for you once,” she admitted. “Your company had grown so much that I couldn't get past your assistants, and every article about you made me feel smaller.” I stared at my hands, remembering the magazine covers and business profiles that had once made me proud. While the world celebrated Damon Prescott, the man building an empire, Cassandra had been struggling to buy winter coats for two children who shared my face.
When the plane began its descent toward Denver, my phone reconnected and immediately flooded with messages. My chief financial officer called three times before I finally answered. “Damon, we have forty minutes before the deadline,” he said urgently. “If you don't sign, Calder could take the entire deal.” I looked across the aisle at Luke, who had fallen asleep against Cassandra's arm, and made a decision that surprised even me.
“Tell Merritt Systems I'm not signing tonight,” I said. Silence followed on the other end. My CFO reminded me that we had invested nine months and millions of dollars into the acquisition, and that postponing could cost us everything. “Then we'll deal with the consequences tomorrow,” I replied before ending the call. For once, I wasn't willing to sacrifice something irreplaceable just to protect a deadline.
After we landed, I arranged a car for Cassandra and the twins, but she immediately shook her head. “We can take a taxi, Damon. I don't want your money to make you feel entitled to our lives.” Her words stung, yet I understood what she meant. I canceled the car service and asked if I could at least carry their bags, leaving the decision entirely in her hands.
At the airport entrance, Luke reached for my hand without hesitation. “Are you coming with us?” he asked, looking up with those unmistakable green eyes. Cassandra froze, waiting for my answer, and I realized that one careless promise could hurt him more than my absence already had. “If your mama says it's okay, I'd really like to spend Christmas with you both,” I told him.
Cassandra studied me for a long moment before quietly agreeing to let me follow them to her sister's house. The drive was filled with nervous conversation, and every time Violet giggled from her car seat, I felt another piece of the life I'd missed settling heavily in my chest. When we arrived, a small Christmas tree glowed in the front window, surrounded by handmade paper ornaments. Two stockings hung beside the fireplace, each bearing a child's name, and I stood frozen when I noticed a third stocking tucked inside a drawer.
Cassandra followed my gaze, then slowly pulled it out. It was old, carefully folded, and embroidered with the name Damon. “I made it when I was pregnant,” she whispered. “I thought that if you ever came back, you should have somewhere to put your gifts.” I couldn't speak as she placed it beside the other two stockings, and for the first time in years, I understood that forgiveness wasn't something I could demand.
That Christmas morning, I didn't ask Cassandra to take me back or promise that everything would be perfect. I helped Luke assemble a wooden train set, read Violet the same picture book four times, and listened while Cassandra told me which foods the twins refused to eat. Before I left, I asked if I could see them again the next day, and she finally gave me a small, cautious smile. “Tomorrow,” she said, “you can start showing them who you really are.”
But as I stepped outside, my phone rang with a message from my attorney about the acquisition—and the unexpected discovery his team had made while reviewing Merritt Systems' final documents. One sentence made my blood run cold, because the deal I'd nearly sacrificed my family for was hiding a secret that could change everything.
—END OF Chapter 1,
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