Chapter 14 - The Cedar Courtyard
By late January, the deep freeze that had paralyzed eastern Tennessee began to give way to an unseasonably warm thaw. The ice melted from the gutters, the gray clouds broke apart to reveal an expanse of pale blue sky, and the air smelled faintly of damp earth and coming spring.
In the courtyard behind the North Knoxville facility, the snow had retreated to small, dirty mounds around the roots of the three massive cedar trees.
Hannah sat on a newly installed wooden bench beneath the shade of the largest cedar, watching a crew of painters finish the exterior trim on the nursery entrance. The doors had been painted a cheerful, soft sage green, with low brass handles designed for small hands.
Ellie was sitting on a thick woolen blanket spread over the damp grass, wearing a bright red sweater and furiously chewing on a teething ring.
The heavy steel fire door opened, and Ethan stepped out into the sunlight. He had shed his necktie, the collar of his pale blue dress shirt open, his jacket unbuttoned. In his hand, he carried two paper cups of coffee from the food truck parked on the street.
“The fire marshal signed off on the emergency egress,” he said, handing her a cup and sitting down beside her on the bench. “Occupancy permit is officially issued as of noon today.”
Hannah took a sip, the warm coffee cutting the cool morning breeze. “We have sixty-eight applications for the seventy slots already. Every single single-mother on the second shift applied within an hour of HR posting the notice.”
“Marcus is furious,” Ethan said, a rare, genuine grin touching his lips. “He spent two weeks trying to prove that our liability insurance would double. Turns out, because we incorporated the facility under the state’s workplace wellness exemption, our industrial liability actually decreased by three percent.”
“He hates that you won,” Hannah noted softly.
“He hates that he doesn't control me anymore,” Ethan corrected. “For three years, he ran this company like his personal fiefdom because I couldn't bring myself to care whether we made a profit or burned to the ground. He had grown accustomed to my absence.”
Ellie dropped her teething ring and let out a sharp, demanding squeak, reaching her arms toward the bench.
Ethan didn't hesitate. He leaned down, scooped the baby up with one arm, and set her on his knee. Ellie immediately grabbed his thumb with both hands, using it as leverage to pull herself into an unsteady standing position on his thigh, her chubby legs bouncing with delight.
Ethan laughed—a rich, deep, resonant sound that Hannah had never heard from him before. It seemed to startle the painters across the courtyard, who glanced over in surprise at the sight of their formidable CEO bouncing an infant in the open air.
“Look at her,” Ethan said, his voice filled with an unvarnished wonder. “She’s got the grip of a ironworker.”
“She takes after her mother,” Hannah said, leaning back against the cedar bench, her heart feeling fuller and lighter than it had in years. “Stubborn. Refuses to let go once she finds something solid.”
Ethan looked at Hannah, his laughter fading into something much deeper, warmer, and intensely intimate. The distance between them on the bench seemed to evaporate. He reached out with his free hand, his knuckles gently tracing the curve of her jawline, brushing back a stray strand of hair that the breeze had blown across her eyes.
“You gave me my life back, Hannah,” he whispered, his eyes searching hers with complete vulnerability.
Hannah couldn't breathe. The warmth of his skin against hers sent a shiver racing down her spine that had nothing to do with the winter air. She leaned into his touch, her lips parting slightly to speak—
May you like
Across the courtyard, on the third floor of the brick warehouse overlooking the garden, a vertical blind shifted.
Neither of them noticed the long lens of a high-resolution digital camera glinting behind the tinted pane, capturing the exact moment the billionaire CEO of Whitmore Industries touched the face of his former cleaning woman, with a baby smiling on his knee.
