Everything had been done by the book, yet it had all been clinical and cold. He paused the video at the moment Leo leaned forward to whisper something in Natalie’s ear. She laughed, put a finger to her lips as if sharing a secret, and continued the dance. It was a moment of pure human connection.
Michael stood up and paced the office, his frustration turning inward. He prided himself on being a man who provided everything, but he realized he had failed to provide the one thing that mattered: a life worth living. He had been so focused on “fixing” the problem that he forgot his son was a child who needed joy.
This woman, who he had treated as part of the background noise of his life, had given Leo more in fifteen minutes than Michael had in two years. He picked up the house phone and called his head of security. “Find Natalie. Tell her I need her to come back tomorrow morning.” The guard hesitated. “Sir, you told us to revoke her gate access this afternoon.”
“I know what I said,” Michael replied, his voice firm. “I’m changing the order. Just get her here.” He hung up and looked back at the frozen image on the screen. There was his son, alive and laughing. He realized then that the old way of running his home was over. Things had to change.
The next morning, the house felt different—tense and stagnant. Usually, the staff moved like clockwork, but today everything seemed to have stalled. Leo sat by the window in his chair, refusing to speak or eat his breakfast. He wouldn’t look at his nanny, and he wouldn’t even acknowledge Michael when he walked into the room.
The light in the boy’s eyes had been snuffed out, replaced by a stony silence. Michael watched from the hallway, feeling a sense of helplessness that no board meeting could ever prepare him for. He had broken the one good thing his son had found. Around noon, security called: they had located Natalie at a local cleaning agency where she had picked up a shift at an apartment complex nearby.
Michael didn’t wait for his driver. He grabbed his keys and drove there himself. He found the building—a modest complex miles away from his own neighborhood. He walked up the stairs, the smell of industrial floor wax hitting him. He knocked on the door of the unit she was working in, and Natalie opened it, looking tired and surprised, her hair pulled back in a messy knot.
“Mr. Sterling?” she whispered, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause trouble yesterday.” Michael took a breath, looking at the floor for a second before meeting her eyes. “No, I’m the one who should apologize. My son… he’s not doing well. He won’t eat. He only wants to see you.”
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