Chapter 10 - A NEW MORNING
Six months later.
The morning sun broke brightly over Boston Harbor, painting the sky in vibrant shades of gold, rose, and amber. The cold, dark winter had finally surrendered to spring.
In the grand dining room of the Cross estate, the long mahogany table was no longer set with cold, formal place settings or surrounded by nervous corporate board members. Instead, it was covered in colorful picture books, wooden building blocks, and a large bowl of fresh strawberries.
Nathaniel sat at the head of the table, wearing a simple gray linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He wasn't looking at a multi-monitor display or checking market fluctuations in Tokyo. He was reading a children’s pop-up book about animals.
Beside him, Lily—now sixteen months old and walking on sturdy, energetic little legs—was sitting in her high chair. She held a strawberry in one fist and a wooden spoon in the other.
Evelyn Park walked into the room, holding a light tablet under her arm.
“Morning, CEO,” Evelyn said, smiling as she grabbed a cup of coffee from the sideboard. “The Asian markets closed up four percent today. Project Avalon is officially operational, and the board just approved the new employee healthcare expansion.”
“Good,” Nathaniel said, not looking up from the book. “Hand me the red crayon, please.”
Evelyn chuckled, sliding a red crayon across the table before setting her tablet down. “You’ve changed, Cross. Six months ago, you would have demanded a fifty-page briefing on the Tokyo stock exchange before breakfast.”
“Six months ago, I was an idiot,” Nathaniel replied smoothly, making a loud, ridiculous roaring sound as he turned the page of the pop-up book to a picture of a lion.
Lily let out a joyous, high-pitched laugh, clapping her strawberry-stained hands together.
Then, she stopped clapping.
She set her wooden spoon down on the high-chair tray. She squints her gray-blue eyes, scrunched her tiny nose, lowered her eyebrows, and produced her classic, world-famous miniature copy of Nathaniel Cross’s original angry face.
Evelyn burst into laughter. Rosa, coming in from the kitchen with a plate of fresh pancakes, shook her head with a warm smile.
Nathaniel set the pop-up book down. He looked at his sixteen-month-old daughter.
Slowly, dramatically, he lowered his eyebrows, scrunched his nose, and made the exact same angry face right back at her.
Lily gasped—and then, unable to hold the serious face any longer, she collapsed into a fit of breathless, hysterical giggles, throwing her small arms wide open toward her father.
May you like
Nathaniel reached over, lifted her out of the high chair, and swung her up into the air, his loud, rich laughter echoing through the sunlit halls of the house.
The house was no longer a fortress of cold silence and corporate stress. It was a home, filled with warmth, memory, and an endless, beautiful noise.
