Chapter 6 Chapter 6 The Weight of Fatherhood

Matteo's POV

My son stood before me-blazer rumpled, collar stained with what I dearly hoped was ketchup-his small chest heaving. Whether from his escapade or anticipation of my reaction, I couldn't tell.

I set down my Montblanc pen with deliberate precision. The click echoed through the silent study. "This makes three times this month, Noah."

He jutted his chin upward, those familiar blue eyes-mirrors of my own-blazing with rebellion. "I just wanted to see the new LEGO store!"

"Alone?" My voice remained dangerously calm. "Without notifying anyone?"

"Anton was with me!" He gestured to the stone-faced bodyguard by the door.

"After you evaded him for forty-three minutes." The number tasted like acid. Forty-three minutes where the unthinkable could have happened. Where the unthinkable had happened to me at his age.

Noah's lower lip quivered before he caught himself, teeth sinking into the soft flesh. He remembered our last conversation-Morettis don't show weakness. The memory curdled in my stomach.

I pushed to my feet, my left leg protesting the movement. The old racing injury still ached in damp weather-a permanent reminder of the crash that stole my career. That stole everything.

Noah instinctively retreated half a step before squaring his tiny shoulders. The defensive movement speared through my chest. When did my son learned to brace for my disappointment?

"To your room," I said, softening my tone despite myself. "We'll discuss consequences after dinner."

"But Papa-"

"Now."

His face fractured for one devastating heartbeat before smoothing into careful neutrality. Without another word, he turned sharply and marched out, Anton trailing at a respectful distance.

The door clicked shut, leaving me alone in my chair, kneading my temples. The Singapore division reports lay forgotten, their numbers swimming before my eyes. I could broker international deals before breakfast, could dismantle corporate rivals with a single phone call, yet one stubborn seven-year-old reduced me to utter helplessness.

The intercom buzzed. "Sir? The nanny position posting is ready for your review."

"Later." I jammed the button with unnecessary force.

Noah hadn't been the same since that damned reporter's question at the park last month-Why don't you have a mother like other children? I'd ruined the man's career before sunset, but the wound in my son's eyes remained.

Just like the wounds I'd inflicted by disappearing into work during his earliest years-endless physiotherapy sessions, hostile takeovers, rebuilding the empire my father nearly destroyed. By the time I surfaced, my toddler had become a wary stranger who startled at sudden movements.

My phone vibrated with surveillance team's alert. The image loaded: Noah with her. Isabella. The woman from the bar. The one whose taste still haunted me.

There they sat on a park bench, her demonstrating the perfect hot dog grip while my son watched with rapt attention. Sunlight gilded her laughing face, and Noah-Christ-Noah beamed with pure, unguarded joy. A sight as foreign as it was beautiful.

I slammed the phone down, crushing the dangerous thought taking root.

Marriage is a transaction. Love is biochemistry. Lessons branded into me when my ex-wife cleaned out our accounts forty-eight hours after my racing accident left me broken in every way that mattered.

Three precise knocks. Evelyn entered, clutching her tablet like a shield. "Sir, about tonight's-"

"Cancel." Too sharp. Too quick.

Her manicured brow arched. "All of them?"

I turned toward the windows. Beyond the glass, the manor's gardens sprawled in twilight-rose bushes trimmed with military precision, ancient oaks casting long shadows over Noah's forgotten toy excavator by the fountain. This land held generations of Moretti history in its soil. The only place I dared lower my guard.

Unlike the penthouse... I squinted my eyes. That cage in the sky, coveted by all of New York, was nothing more than a slaughterhouse for physical needs. I never took the same woman there a second time, just as I never savored the same cigar at the end of a meal.

But ever since that night with Bella, even the thought of another woman's touch left me cold.

Pathetic.

My grip dented the chair's leather. I couldn't let any woman influence me.

"Reschedule for tomorrow," I snapped.

Evelyn's stylus hovered. "Any... specifications?"

"Does it matter?" The lie curdled on my tongue. It had never had before.

Evelyn nodded and turned to leave. The door clicked shut, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I squeezed my eyes closed, but the image persisted-Noah's radiant smile as Isabella treated him like an ordinary boy. Not a legacy. Not a bargaining chip. Just a child worth loving for himself alone.

My molars ground together hard enough to spark.

Sentiment was for men who hadn't learned. I'd taken marriage vows seriously-right up until my ex-wife proved they were worthless. The racetrack crash that shattered my femur had been agony, but waking up alone in that sterile hospital room? That had been annihilation. Machines shrieking alarms as nurses fought to stabilize me, while Amanda methodically drained every shared account.

Once burned, twice shy.

Against my better judgment, I unlocked my phone. The surveillance photos taunted me-Isabella's sunlit laughter, her careful fingers wiping Noah's face, the defiant heat in her whiskey eyes when she'd met me toe-to-toe in that penthouse.

I slammed the device onto the desk with a growl.

This was exactly why I needed tomorrow's arrangements. To cauterize this inconvenient fascination. To prove-if only to myself-that no woman left lasting marks on me. That one night meant less than nothing.

The intercom crackled. "Sir? Master Noah requests permission for ketchup with his chicken tenders."

Ice crystallized along my spine, the old defenses rising on instinct. Then-

"Yes." The word tasted foreign. "And inform him I'll join him for dinner."

Noah was the exception. The only one who'd ever slipped past my armor.

No one else would get close enough to matter.

Love was vulnerability.

And Matteo Moretti?

I had none.