My CEO Husband Never Let Our Son Call Him Dad

The HR director's office felt smaller than usual, the fluorescent lights casting harsh shadows across her mahogany desk. I placed the resignation letter on the polished surface, my fingers steady despite the earthquake happening inside my chest.

"My husband is transferring to the Seattle office," I said, the lie sliding off my tongue with practiced ease. "I'd like to put in my two weeks."

Director Martinez looked up from the document, her eyebrows raised in genuine surprise. "Harper, I have to say, we've always assumed you were a single mother. You've never mentioned a husband in all your years here."

I smiled, a careful curve of my lips that revealed nothing. "I prefer to keep my personal life private."

She wouldn't be wrong for much longer anyway. In two weeks, I'd be exactly what she'd always thought I was—a single mother starting over.

The hallway stretched before me as I left her office, my heels clicking against the marble floor in a rhythm that matched my racing heartbeat. The resignation letter was submitted. The first domino had fallen.

Then I saw them.

Sterling Ashford walked toward me, his assistant Priscilla Vale beside him. My breath caught as I watched him deliberately slow his pace to match hers, his long strides shortened to accommodate her smaller steps. She held a stack of files in one hand while her other hand lightly grasped the edge of his charcoal suit jacket—a casual, intimate gesture that sent a sharp pain through my throat.

They moved together like a matched set, like two people who belonged in the same frame. The way couples did.

The way we never had.

"Sterling—" The word escaped before I could stop it.

He paused, turning toward me with the kind of polite, distant expression reserved for business acquaintances. "Ms. Langley."

Two words. Two syllables that contained six years of our marriage, six years of pretending we were nothing more than boss and employee. Six years of our son asking why Daddy couldn't come to school events, why he had to call him 'Mr. Ashford' in public.

Ms. Langley. Not Harper. Never Harper, not here.

I swallowed the words that wanted to spill out—about the resignation, about finally being free, about how I was done pretending we were strangers. He wouldn't care anyway.

My phone buzzed against my palm. A message from Emmett's smartwatch: "Mommy, will Daddy come for my birthday today?"

I looked up at Sterling, watching as he leaned down to murmur something to Priscilla. His hand moved instinctively to the small of her back as a group of executives passed by, protecting her from the crowd. The gesture was so natural, so automatic.

He'd never done that for me. Not once in six years.

I started to turn away, ready to disappear back into the maze of cubicles and conference rooms where I could pretend my heart wasn't breaking in real time.

"Harper."

His fingers wrapped around my wrist, stopping me mid-step. The contact sent electricity shooting