The board meeting had barely ended when Mara sprang from her seat, high heels already clicking toward the door.
"I've got to dash," she called. "If I don't get to that shipment, my entire spring collection's going up in flames!"
Ada smiled. "Go save the runway."
She lingered behind, waiting while Ken signed a few final documents. As chairman of the board, he had inherited more than just his father's empire, he had taken on a world that never really slept.
"You hungry?" he asked, glancing up.
"Starving," Ada replied. "You promised me lunch."
They moved into his office where lunch was set neatly on the table. A soft jazz playlist hummed in the background as they sat and began eating; grilled fish, rice, sautéed vegetables.
Midway through, Ada's phone buzzed. She picked it up, casually scrolling and then stilled.
"Oh! She just uploaded a new one," she said, showing him the screen.
Ken raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Elle Naya," Ada replied. "You remember I mentioned her last time? The Nigerian woman I follow on YouTube, the one who talks about healing, motherhood, trauma, the works."
He nodded slowly. "Yeah, I remember. You said she shook the whole internet."
Ada's eyes gleamed. "She's unreal, Ken. This new video is from her Life After the Bump series. Her honesty just cuts through you. And the way she talks; strong, calm, full of grace…"
He reached for his water, sipping as she talked.
"I still can't believe I forgot to send you the link last time. Here," she said, already forwarding it to him. "You'll really appreciate her. You've always been one to notice quiet strength."
Ken's phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at it briefly, the thumbnail of a video, the channel name: Elle Naya Speaks.
He didn't touch it.
Something tugged faintly in the back of his mind, like a name he couldn't quite place or a song he used to know.
He looked away.
"I'll watch it after we eat," he said lightly.
Ada grinned. "Prepare to be glued. That woman is fire and balm in one."
He smiled back, but it didn't reach his eyes.
Because something about that face unsettled him.
It stirred something.
But not yet enough to confront it.
So, he tucked the thought away, for now and picked up his fork again.
***
The office door clicked shut behind Ada, her perfume lingering faintly in the quiet. Ken glanced down at the half-cleared lunch tray, then at the glowing phone screen in front of him.
Elle Naya – The One Who Was Cast Away.
He tapped it slowly. The thumbnail loaded. A woman seated calmly in a warm-toned studio, a glass of water untouched by her side. Her natural hair framed her face like a halo. She looked into the camera as if she was looking straight into him.
Ken's heart stopped.
Lina.
The phone slipped slightly in his grip.
He blinked, staring, disbelieving.
No.
It couldn't be.
But it was. That face, same with the one on the document he got from the fertility doctor; the soft yet stubborn chin, the warm brown eyes, the curve of her lips; he'd memorized that face in one night and spent over a decade trying to forget it, and failing.
She hadn't vanished.
She'd been living.
And now, she was speaking.
He pressed play.
"I had planned to talk today about being a surrogate. About the emotions, the boundaries, the beauty of helping another family...
But something changed in me today.
Today, I want to speak for the girl who was cast away."
Ken leaned forward slowly, the words hitting a place in him he didn't know was still vulnerable. His eyes locked on the screen, his lips parted slightly.
"I was sixteen. Just a child pretending to be grown.
One mistake; one moment changed everything.
I became pregnant... I was scared."
Ken's body turned rigid.
No.
His mouth dried. His breathing grew shallow.
Was she saying...?
"I had no medical care. I learned about pregnancy from watching women at bus stops, and reading worn women magazines.
I gave birth alone."
The world tilted.
Ken's hands dropped to his lap. The phone sat upright on his desk, the screen a mirror to his ruin.
She had been pregnant.
With his child.
He had never known.
G
His heartbeat pounded in his ears. A slow, sick realization crept over him like a tide.
All this time…
"I made more mistakes. Because pain can make the wrong things feel like survival.
But it all started with that first deep wound, not the pregnancy but the rejection."
Ken's eyes welled. He didn't bother to wipe the tears this time. They trailed freely down his face.
He remembered the last time he saw her. Young, fierce, radiant. He remembered promising he'd call. Then the accident. His father's death. The business takeover.
Everything swept her away.
But she had been carrying his child.
Alone.
"Leaving a child to face something so big alone... is dangerous."
He rubbed his chest, fingers curled against the pain.
He thought she vanished because she hadn't cared. Because it hadn't meant anything to her.
But all along, she had carried him; his child, his legacy, in silence. In suffering.
Davis.
Ken sat back in his chair, breath knocked out of him.
She hadn't just come into their lives as a surrogate.
She had come back.
"I survived because mercy found me.
Strangers showed me kindness. Gave me a room. Gave me a chance.
But what if I never found that mercy?"
Ken's lips quivered.
She could've died.
She could've given up.
He would never have known.
He thought he was the one who had been left behind, haunted by a girl he once loved for a fleeting night.
But it was Lina who had been cast away.
And she didn't come back for pity.
She came back for a purpose.
"You are not your mistake. You are not their judgment. You are more.
My name is Lina.
And I am not ashamed of my past.
I carry it like armour now, not as a burden."
The screen dimmed. Silence filled the room.
Ken reached forward, paused the video, then just sat there.
Still.
Broken.
Awake.
He felt as though someone had ripped the veil from his life and made him see everything he had been blind to.
I
His son, Davis was not a random miracle.
He was Lina's redemption.
And his responsibility.
Ken exhaled a sob so raw, it startled him. His head dropped into his hands.
"Oh God... Lina."
He wasn't just watching a video.
He was standing at the edge of his own reckoning.