Victor

She stands in my office, small and silent, like a ghost afraid to haunt the wrong place.

I don’t bother looking up from my desk. "What do you want?"

There’s hesitation, just long enough to test my patience.

"Nothing," she murmurs.

I exhale sharply, dropping my pen with a quiet clink against the glass desk. "Then why are you wasting my time?"

She shifts, fingers twisting in the hem of her sleeves. A childish habit. Weak.

"I just… I thought maybe we could have dinner together tonight," she says, voice barely above a whisper.

Dinner.

I blink, caught off guard for the briefest second before irritation settles back in. Dinner? After all these years of cold distance, after everything I’ve made clear, she still clings to the fantasy that we are something more than obligation?

I sigh, shaking my head. "Don’t be ridiculous."

She nods quickly, as if she expected it. "Right. Sorry."

That should be the end of it. She should leave. But for some reason, she lingers.

Something inside me snaps.

"Stop acting like this is something it’s not," I say, my voice sharper than intended.

She flinches.

I lean back in my chair, arms crossed. "You and I—we are not family. You may share my last name, but that’s where it ends. You are here because you were born, not because I wanted you. Don’t mistake my tolerance for love."

The silence that follows is heavier than I expect.

She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t argue. She just stares at me, eyes unreadable.

Then, with a small nod, she whispers, "Understood."

She turns to leave, and something twists in my chest.

I should let her go. I should move on. But as she reaches for the door, something about the finality of it—the quiet acceptance—unsettles me.

It shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t.

And yet—

"Wait."

The word leaves my lips before I can stop it.

She pauses, turning back to me. Expecting another dismissal.

I sigh, rubbing a hand over my face. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

But the image of her eating alone in this massive, empty house feels… unbearably wrong.

"Seven o’clock," I mutter. "Don’t be late."

Her eyes widen slightly.

For a moment, she looks almost too shocked to respond—like she never actually expected me to say yes.

Then, finally, she nods. "Okay."

She leaves, and the office is silent again.

I should feel victorious. I should feel nothing at all.

Instead, I find myself staring at the clock, wondering why seven o’clock suddenly feels too far away.