DANIEL'S POV
Daniel didn't sleep.
He lay in his bed staring at the ceiling and replaying the moment over and over. The moment he'd reached over. The moment her hand had fit into his like they'd been designed that way. The moment he'd felt something crack open inside his chest that he'd spent twelve years sealing shut.
Her hand had been warm and real and terrifying.
He'd built his entire life around not feeling things. Around keeping distance. Around making sure no one could get close enough to hurt him. And then Sophie had come into his penthouse with two suitcases and somehow managed to destroy every wall he'd ever built.
She made the space feel like home. That was the problem. When she cooked, the kitchen smelled like life. When she laughed, the penthouse didn't feel so cold and empty. When she looked at him on that balcony, she looked at him like he was a person worth knowing. Not a product. Not a business deal. Just Daniel.
And he couldn't have that.
Daniel got out of bed at 4 AM and went to his office. If he worked long enough, maybe he could convince himself that holding her hand meant nothing. Maybe he could rebuild the walls that were crumbling. Maybe he could remember why the distance was important in the first place.
By the time the sun came up, he'd made a decision.
He was going to pull back. All the way back. Back to the original arrangement. Back to being strangers who lived in the same space but didn't actually know each other.
It was the right choice. It was the only choice.
Sophie was in the kitchen when he came down for breakfast. She'd made coffee. She always made coffee now even though he'd never asked her to. It was sitting on the counter by his usual seat. A small kindness that he couldn't afford to notice anymore.
"Good morning," she said. Her voice was bright but careful. Like she was testing the waters.
Daniel didn't smile. He picked up the coffee and sat at the dining table instead of next to her at the counter. He made his voice professional. Distant. The voice he used with business partners who didn't matter.
"Thank you for the coffee," he said. "But you don't need to do this anymore. My staff can handle breakfast."
He could feel her watching him. Could feel the moment she understood what he was doing.
"Oh," she said softly. "Okay."
She didn't make breakfast. She just sat across from him picking at toast while he read his phone. They were strangers again. Polite strangers who shared a penthouse but didn't actually connect.
This was better. Safer. This was how it was supposed to be from the beginning.
But it felt like someone had reached inside his chest and ripped something out.
At work, Daniel tried to focus on deals. On the merger his team was working on. On the quarterly reports that needed his attention. But his mind kept wandering to Sophie sitting alone in the penthouse. Sophie who'd made him coffee and been rejected for it. Sophie who was probably crying or angry or both.
He didn't check on her.
That night, they didn't sit on the balcony.
Sophie made dinner but ate alone while Daniel stayed in his office. When she knocked on his door at 7 PM, he told her he was busy. When she left a report about a company acquisition on his desk, he responded with an email instead of talking to her in person.
By day two, the coldness had become a familiar comfort. By day three, he almost believed it was the right decision. Almost convinced himself that what he was doing was protecting her instead of hurting her.
But watching her move through the penthouse like a ghost was destroying him.
She stopped cooking elaborate meals. She stopped leaving coffee by his desk. She stopped laughing. She moved around the space like she was trying to take up as little room as possible. Like she understood she wasn't supposed to be here. Like she was counting down the days until the three years were up and she could escape.
That was what he wanted. That was the whole point. To keep her at a distance so when she left, it wouldn't matter.
Except it already mattered. It mattered so much that Daniel couldn't breathe sometimes when he thought about her walking out that door.
On the fourth night of the silence between them, Daniel stood in his bedroom listening to the quiet. The penthouse had never felt so empty. So cold. So exactly like what he'd designed it to be before Sophie arrived.
This was what he wanted. An empty space with empty feelings and empty promises.
Then he heard it.
A sound coming from the guest bedroom on the other side of the penthouse. A small, broken sound. Sophie crying. Not loud. Not dramatic. The kind of crying where you're trying very hard to be quiet and failing because the sadness is too big to contain.
Daniel's hands clenched into fists.
He walked to her door. He raised his hand to knock. He could explain. He could tell her that he was protecting himself and that had nothing to do with her. He could tell her that what he'd felt on that balcony had terrified him so much that he'd needed to demolish it.
He could ask for her forgiveness.
But if he did that, he'd have to admit that she mattered. He'd have to admit that losing her would destroy him. He'd have to admit that the whole arrangement was already falling apart because he couldn't look at her without wanting to hold her hand again.
So he didn't knock.
He stood outside her door listening to her cry and knowing he was the reason. Knowing that his walls and his fear and his inability to feel anything had hurt someone who didn't deserve to be hurt.
Sophie cried quietly in the dark. And Daniel stood in the hallway hating himself for being exactly the kind of person he'd always been. Cold. Untouchable. Incapable of real connection.
He'd become his father after all.
Just like he'd always known he would.