POV Zayden

I was used to control.

Numbers bent to my will. Markets responded to my commands. Headlines wrote themselves based on my decisions.

The world moved because I told it to, with the precision of a conductor orchestrating a symphony of power and profit.

But tonight, the world was made of plastic pieces the size of postage stamps, and none of them made any goddamn sense.

My tie was gone—ripped off and thrown somewhere around hour two of this architectural nightmare. Sleeves rolled up to my elbows, hair that usually held its style through board meetings now stuck to my forehead with sweat.

I glared down at a pile of pastel-colored chaos that was supposed to become a Victorian dollhouse according to the box, but currently looked like a toy store had exploded.

“This piece doesn’t even belong in this fucking house,” I growled, holding up a pink balcony that had already snapped off twice, apparently designed by sadists who enjoyed watching grown men suffer.

I tried again.

The piece popped off like it was personally mocking my inability to master children’s toys.

Mia, sitting cross-legged nearby in glitter pajamas that probably cost more to dry clean than most people’s rent, crossed her arms and shook her head with the exaggerated patience of someone explaining quantum physics to a particularly slow child.

“Daddy, that goes on the side, not the front. Like the picture. See?”

She turned the instruction booklet around—the same booklet I’d been staring at for the last twenty minutes like it was written in ancient Sanskrit.

Mia pointed at the diagram with tiny fingers that somehow made more sense of this disaster than my MBA ever could.

I blinked at it, then at her. “You sure about that?”

“Positive,” she chirped, eyes sparkling with the kind of confidence I used to reserve for million-dollar acquisitions.

From the kitchen archway, Jocelyn leaned against the frame with a mug in hand, her laughter silent but visible in the warm smile she wasn’t trying to hide.

The woman was watching the man she’d once known as cold steel and corporate intimidation get systematically defeated by a six-year-old and a dollhouse.

And losing spectacularly.

“You’re both engineers now?” she asked with that dry humor that had been destroying my composure for months.

“No,” I muttered, wrestling with a piece that seemed to actively resist proper placement. “She’s the boss. I’m the unpaid labor.”

“Finally,” Jocelyn teased, and I could hear the grin in her voice. “A CEO who knows his place.”

Mia giggled, spinning a tiny chandelier between her fingers like it was the most fascinating object in the universe.

“Mommy, can we make him do all the rooms? Even the bathroom?”

I raised an eyebrow at this small dictator who’d somehow convinced me to spend my evening doing manual labor for no compensation.

“You’re lucky I love you,” I said, but my tone was completely soft, unguarded in a way that would’ve terrified me six months ago. “And yes, I’ll even do the bathroom.”

I wrestled the balcony into place with the determination of someone dismantling a hostile takeover. It wobbled precariously, but stayed attached.

Mia clapped like I’d just successfully landed a spacecraft on Mars.

“You did it!”

The hours passed in a blur of plastic furniture and architectural impossibilities.

The dollhouse took shape—crooked walls, mismatched stickers, doors that creaked but never quite latched properly. It was a complete disaster by any reasonable construction standard.

It was absolutely perfect.

When bedtime rolled around, Mia was yawning, her small limbs heavy with exhaustion but her smile still wide enough to power half of Manhattan.

Jocelyn helped her through the teeth-brushing negotiations while I tucked the tiny plastic sofa into its place beside the dollhouse fireplace.

It leaned at a slight angle, but I didn’t fix it.

Perfection wasn’t the point anymore.

In her bedroom, Mia climbed into bed and curled beneath a unicorn comforter that was probably more expensive than my first apartment.

Her stuffed tiger—now slightly deflated from constant love and probably more valuable to her than my entire investment portfolio—was tucked beneath her chin.

Jocelyn pressed a kiss to her cheek with the practiced ease of six years of solo parenting. I followed with quieter steps, my chest tight with something I couldn’t name but didn’t want to lose.

I crouched beside the bed, my hand moving slowly to brush curls off her forehead. The gesture felt foreign and natural at the same time.

“Did you have fun tonight?” I asked.

Mia nodded, already half asleep. “Best night ever.”

I hesitated, words catching in my throat like they were too big for the space between us. When I finally spoke, my voice dropped to something barely audible.

“I wasn’t there for your first steps. Your first birthday. I didn’t hold you the first time you cried or celebrate when you said your first word.”

The admission felt like confessing to corporate fraud, except this mattered infinitely more.

“But if you let me… I’ll never miss another first again.”

She blinked up at me with those green eyes that mirrored mine, not fully understanding the weight of what I was saying, but her small fingers reached for my hand anyway.

“You’re here now,” she whispered.

Two words that hit harder than any hostile takeover or board meeting disaster.

“I am,” I managed.

I kissed her forehead—a long, slow kiss that said more than any contract or promise I’d ever signed. It was a seal on something that couldn’t be broken by lawyers or corporate maneuvering.

Back in the hallway, Jocelyn waited with her arms crossed and something reverent in her expression, like she’d witnessed something holy instead of a father saying goodnight to his daughter.

“She loves you already,” she said softly.

“I don’t deserve it,” I admitted, because honesty seemed to be my default setting around these two women. “But I’m going to protect it with everything I have.”

We didn’t go to bed immediately.

Instead, we sat on the couch shoulder to shoulder, watching city lights paint patterns across the windows. Jocelyn’s head eventually found its way to my shoulder like it belonged there.

“You used to be terrifying,” she murmured against my shirt.

“Still?”

She laughed quietly. “Only when you’re being stupid.”

I turned toward her. “And tonight?”

“You were brave. Not because of the dollhouse construction project from hell. Because you let her see you. The real you. No corporate armor.”

My fingers found hers, and our hands didn’t fit together neatly—but we held on anyway, because perfect wasn’t the point anymore.

When we finally stood to head to bed, I found myself returning to Mia’s room one last time.

She was deep asleep now, chest rising and falling in the soft rhythms that somehow made more sense than any business plan I’d ever written.

I knelt beside her again, tucked the blanket higher, touched the stuffed tiger and smiled at how something so simple could mean everything.

“I’m here now,” I whispered, voice rough with emotions I was still learning to name. “Forever.”

Mia didn’t wake, but her fingers curled tighter around the tiger like she’d heard me.

I lingered there, eyes burning, heart breaking and mending simultaneously as I watched this small person who’d changed everything just by existing.

“Promise?” she murmured in her sleep.

I answered without hesitation, because some promises are carved in stone instead of written in contracts.

“I don’t break promises anymore,” I said.