#####chapter1: A Past That Didn’t Ask Permission —

The room was too quiet for a morning this tense.

Anita Callister stood by the glass wall of her office, twenty-two floors above Lagos, the city’s pulse humming beneath her heels. From up here, everything looked manageable. Tame. Even beautiful. But in her chest, nothing felt controlled.

She sipped from the coffee cup in her hand, her fingers barely warm despite the steam. A child’s drawing was tacked to the wall beside her—Clara’s latest: “Mummy, Me, and Daddy (but I made him with no face).”

That drawing had sat there for months, haunting her like a question she never dared answer.

Anita blinked.

Behind her, the glass door clicked.

“Ma,” her assistant said carefully. “The investor from Benson Global has arrived.”

Anita didn’t flinch. Not at first. Not until that name hit the air like broken glass.

“Did you say... Benson?”

“Yes, ma. Their CEO insisted on joining today’s meeting personally. I believe his name is—”

“No need,” she said, setting her cup down like it was made of ice. “Bring him in.”

She turned before he entered.

She needed composure—needed to look untouchable. But nothing prepared her for the man who stepped through the glass doors like he’d never burned her world down.

Zan Benson.

Seven years hadn’t aged him; they’d sharpened him. The same broad shoulders, the same storm-colored eyes that never said sorry, and that deliberate walk, quiet but commanding. But this time, something else walked in with him.

Guilt.

He looked right at her. And didn’t blink.

“Hello, Anita.”

Her name in his voice sent something unspoken spiralling down her spine. Not a spark. Not nostalgia. Just raw, bone-deep memory.

“Mr. Benson,” she said, stepping forward like her heart wasn’t thudding in betrayal. “You’re five minutes early.”

He gave a small smile. “I thought you'd appreciate efficiency.”

“I appreciate clarity,” she replied. “Let’s start with why you're here.”

Zan took the seat opposite her desk, his tailored suit perfectly creased, his face unreadable.

“I want to invest in Clara & Co,” he said, not flinching once as he said the name of the company she’d named after the daughter he didn’t know existed.

She froze.

And then—smiled.

A slow, quiet smile that tasted like iron.

“You’ve done your research,” she said.

“I always do,” he replied, leaning forward. “But I’m here for more than a contract.”

She laughed—cold and small. “Please tell me you didn’t come here to audition for fatherhood.”

“I came,” he said slowly, “to face what I destroyed.”

Anita stood. “You destroyed a girl, Zan. She’s gone. You’re looking at the woman who replaced her.”

Zan’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t speak.

She circled the desk.

“I don’t need your investment. My company doesn’t need your blood money. And my daughter—” her voice faltered, just briefly, “—doesn’t need a stranger with a billion naira guilt complex.”

A pause.

Long enough for her words to hit. And yet... he didn’t move.

“She has your eyes,” Zan said suddenly.

Silence stretched between them like glass. Breakable. Dangerous.

Anita’s breath hitched—but her face didn’t.

“You’ve been watching us?”

“No. Just her picture in the press. You took her to the Women in Leadership gala. She drew a sunflower on your speech notes.”

She hadn’t expected that. Not the detail. Not the tone. Not the fact that he’d noticed a child’s doodle from the back row of a camera shot.

“You had your chance,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“Then why now?”

He stood.

“Because I woke up in a penthouse last month and realised no amount of luxury has erased the one name I never stopped whispering—yours.”

That time, she did flinch.

But not because of his words.

Because behind Zan Benson, through the open doorway, stood Clara, small, wide-eyed, innocent.

Her voice rang out:

“Mummy? Who’s that man?”

Anita’s pulse stopped.

She hadn’t known Clara was in the building.

Clara stepped forward, blinking at Zan. Her curls bounced with each step, her tablet still in hand from the car ride.

Zan turned—too slowly, too softly.

And something in his eyes cracked open.

“Clara,” Anita said sharply, stepping between them, “wait in the hall.”

But it was too late.

Clara tilted her head and smiled.

“You look like my drawings.”

Zan bent slightly, swallowing hard. “What drawings?”

Clara pointed at the notebook she held. “The ones with no face. But you have one.”

Anita stepped forward, voice tight. “Clara. Now.”

Clara obeyed. Slowly. But she looked back once. At Zan. At the man whose eyes mirrored hers.

And when the door shut behind her, silence returned like a slap.

Zan didn’t speak.

Neither did she.

The moment held something neither of them wanted to name yet.

Zan straightened.

“When were you going to tell me?”

Anita folded her arms. “Never.”

And then, without breaking her gaze, she walked to her desk and pulled open the drawer she hadn’t touched in years.

From it, she took a photo.

Clara. Age one. Holding a sunflower. Laughing.

She dropped it on the table between them.

Zan picked it up.

Hands shaking.

Breath stolen.

A broken whisper fell from his lips.

“My God.”

She said nothing.

But her eyes—dark and unreadable—spoke louder than anything he could.