Chapter 4 - THE UNRAVELING
The Napa trip was a disaster for Elise Warren. She sat on the terrace of the vineyard, waiting for a man who never arrived, her phone silent. When she finally reached him, Gabriel was direct.
"I can't do this, Elise."
"Do what? Propose? Or just be a decent human being?" Her voice was brittle. "I heard from your COO. You’ve gone off the grid. Why?"
"I found out I have a daughter," Gabriel said, his voice flat.
There was a long pause. "A daughter? Since when?"
"Since two years ago."
The silence on the other end of the line was absolute. Then, a sharp, cynical laugh. "You’re kidding. You’re using a child as an excuse to break up with me? That’s almost creative, Gabriel."
"I don't need an excuse, Elise. I need to be a father. I’m moving to San Francisco."
"You’re throwing away a six-billion-dollar company for a toddler?"
"I’m throwing away a lie for the truth," he said. He hung up. The severance was clean, brutal, and necessary. He felt lighter, though the emptiness of his life—a life built on acquisition rather than connection—was now painfully apparent.
He didn't go to see Nora again for three days. He spent the time in a small, rented house in the Berkeley hills, away from the glass-and-steel luxury he was used to. He learned how to grocery shop for things other than luxury imports. He learned how to drive a mid-range sedan without a chauffeur. He was preparing.
When he finally went to her apartment building in Oakland, it was a rainy Thursday. He carried nothing but a bag of groceries and a copy of a book he had seen Emma reading on the plane. He stood in the hall, his heart hammering against his ribs, and knocked on the door.
Nora opened it, her apron stained with tea. She looked surprised, then wary. "What are you doing here, Gabriel?"
"I quit," he said.
She blinked, confused. "You quit what?"
"Everything. I’m here. Not as a CEO, not as a boss, but as a man who wants a chance to be a father."
May you like
She looked at him for a long time, scanning his face for the arrogance she had come to expect. She saw only a profound, exhausted sincerity. "You’re still a monster, Gabriel. You just think you’re a reformed one."
"I know I am," he replied. "But I’m a monster who wants to learn how to be human. Please. Just let me see her."
