She sat on the edge of a leather sofa in the corner, holding a cookie one of the assistants had given her. She ate slowly—carefully—like someone rationing a treasure. Like someone who didn’t know when the next meal would come.
When the boardroom finally emptied, Gabriel approached her.
“Where do you live?” he asked gently.
She shrugged. “Different places. Shelters sometimes. Mostly outside. My mom… she left one night and didn’t come back.”
He felt something inside him crack.
“Not anymore,” he said quietly.
And for the first time in years, Gabriel Moretti meant something more than a business promise.
He kept every word.
He bought her clothes that actually fit. Sneakers. A warm coat. A backpack filled with notebooks and colored pencils. He hired a social worker and began the legal process for guardianship. He enrolled her in a private school and arranged for tutors to help her catch up.
He sold his empty penthouse apartment—the one that had always felt like a showroom instead of a home—and bought a brownstone with a small backyard in Brooklyn.
The first time Maya saw the yard, she stared at it like it was an ocean.
“It’s ours?” she asked.
“It’s yours,” he replied.