“Mr. Reynolds—I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were home.”
“Daddy!” Ava squeaked, then instantly recoiled, guilt flickering across her face.
Michael backed out of the kitchen and made his way to his office, shutting the door behind him. His hands trembled as he poured a glass of whiskey, but the burn of it did nothing to calm the storm inside.
How had this young maid reached his daughter in ways he—and multiple specialists—could not? Why was Ava opening her heart to Paige but shutting him out completely?
The next morning, he left the house at his usual time. But instead of heading to his office, he circled the block and parked. He needed to know the truth.
Quiet as a shadow, he slipped through the back door, went straight to his office, and pulled out the tiny cameras he had bought on his way home the night before.
And with shaking hands, he installed them.
Whatever was happening in his house, he was finally going to see it.
Michael Reynolds had money, influence, and a calendar packed with meetings that never seemed to end, yet none of it helped him survive the quiet evenings that followed the death of his wife. For months, the sprawling house overlooking the hills outside San Diego felt less like a home and more like a museum of grief, each room carefully preserved yet painfully empty. His three year old daughter, Ava, had stopped speaking after the accident, retreating into a silence that no specialist, no toy, and no expensive therapy session had been able to break.
On a Tuesday afternoon, Michael cut short a negotiation with overseas partners without fully understanding why. A tight pressure sat in his chest, a strange instinct urging him to return home. When he pushed open the kitchen door earlier than usual, he froze, gripping the doorframe to steady himself as though the floor had shifted beneath his feet.
