Chapter 38 FIGHT OR FLIGHT
Ethan had closed earlier than usual. He was known for working late, often the last to leave, but today felt different. For once, after work hours, he felt the urge to go home just like everyone else.
His mood was already ruined. He couldn't relax until things were settled, and the issue with Vincent was still hanging in the air. With a tight grip on his briefcase, he headed down to where his driver was waiting.
The drive home was quiet. Ethan loved cars. There was something about the motion, the hum of the engine, the steady glide through the city that always seemed to clear his mind. As he sat in the back seat, he felt his nerves begin to settle. All he needed now was a hot shower, a warm meal, and his bed. But as the car pulled into the Sinclair mansion, his calm unraveled. Parked unmistakably in the driveway was a distinctive grey G-Wagon. Just like that, every trace of peace disappeared.
As his car came to a stop, Ethan sat for a moment, eyes fixed on the grey G-Wagon. He scanned it carefully,After a minute, he exhaled sharply and stepped out, bracing himself.
He walked into his expansive parlour, the silence of the house doing nothing to ease the tension brewing inside him.
And there seated comfortably in the far corner of his massive sofa like she owned the place was the last person he wanted to see.
"Ethan," Margarete said with a wide smile. "You're home."
Ethan didn't mirror her excitement. His expression remained unreadable, his tone cold as ever.
"Why didn't you call to say you were coming?" he asked, his voice low and firm.
"I wanted to surprise you," she said, still smiling as she rose to her feet. "Since you refused to come visit me even after I invited you and your wife over for dinner."
"I've been really busy, Margaret ," Ethan replied flatly.
"Well," she said, brushing invisible lint off her sleeve, "that's exactly why I came. Since you're far too busy to make time for your own mother."
"I see you've made yourself comfortable," Ethan said dryly, barely glancing her way. "I'll be upstairs."
Without waiting for a response, he turned and began climbing the stairs, his footsteps echoing through the quiet house.
The forced smile on Margarete's face faded almost instantly as Ethan disappeared upstairs. From the top of the staircase, Lena peeked down, uncertain of what to make of the tense, hollow exchange between mother and son. She had quietly slipped upstairs the moment she heard the front door open, but Ethan’s cold tone had rooted her in place.
She watched him now as he ascended, his face set, but there was a heaviness in his expression, something sadder than usual. He looked up and saw her standing there. He paused briefly.
“Welcome,” she said, her voice dry.
“Yeah,” he replied, robotic and distant.
“Um… how did it go with Vincent?”
“I’m still working on it,” he muttered, brushing past her as he continued up the stairs.
Ethan made his way to his room and shut the door behind him with a loud bang. The sound echoed through the quiet hallway, sharp and heavy.
He walked over to the large dressing table and set his briefcase down with a thud. Then he just stood there, staring at it motionless.
Ethan’s strained relationship with his mother was rooted in more than just personality differences; it was built on years of emotional neglect.
While his grandfather had raised him with an iron hand, grooming him to be the heir to the Sinclair empire, Margarete had always been too preoccupied with her own life to truly be a mother.
His daily routine as a child had been rigid and relentless. Every minute of his day was accounted for school, lessons, etiquette, and business briefings, even as a boy. If he fell behind by even a second, his grandfather would scold him harshly, reminding him that Sinclair men didn’t waste time.
And while he endured that pressure, his mother was never there to soften the blow. She was always off at some event, vacationing in Monaco, attending galas in Paris, or mingling with society’s elite. She leaned heavily on nannies to raise him, only surfacing now and then and even then, her presence felt cold, transactional. There were no hugs, no warmth, no maternal comfort. Only surface-level concern and sharp words if she heard he’d underperformed at school or during practice.
He didn’t grow up with love. He grew up with expectations. Treated like a project, like an heirloom to be polished and passed down, not a child who needed affection.
Ethan didn’t grow up with hobbies, at least not ones he chose for himself. Every interest, every preference, every decision about what he was supposed to like or dislike had been dictated by his grandfather.
Art was a waste of time. Sports were only useful if they built discipline. Friends were distractions.
So he followed orders, checked boxes, and met expectations. But deep down, he’d always had a quiet fascination with cars. Not the luxury status symbols his family flaunted but the engineering, the precision, the power beneath the hood.
It was the one thing that hadn’t been chosen for him. He had discovered it on his own late-night car shows on muted TVs, sneaking into the garage to run his fingers over chrome panels, collecting model cars and hiding them like contraband.
And the moment he was old enough, when no one could tell him otherwise, he pursued it.
In a life carved out for everyone but himself, cars became his escape and the only thing that ever truly felt like his.
And so now, every time he looked at Margarete, all he saw was someone who had a choice and chose not to be there.
When Margarete given birth to Sophie, Ethan noticed something he’d never seen before: a bond.
He saw the way she dressed her up, the way she paraded her around, how they took mother-daughter trips and posted smiling photos from yacht decks and luxury boutiques. Margarete would laugh, hold her close, call her “my little twin.”
It was everything Ethan never got. He watched them with quiet detachment, unsure if it was jealousy, resentment, or just a confirmation of what he already knew: she could be a mother, she just chose not to be one to him.
He didn’t consider her his mother. That word mother meant something she had never lived up to. She didn’t know what it meant to nurture, to be present, to love without conditions.
To him, she was just Margarete Sinclair, another polished socialite wrapped up in designer clothes and champagne dinners. Not a mother. Just Margarete.
Ethan finally stepped away from the table, ignoring the familiar ache that tugged at his chest a pain that surfaced every time he saw her, every time she smiled at him like nothing had ever been wrong.
He shrugged off his suit jacket and tossed it aside, then collapsed onto the bed with a heavy sigh.
Staring up at the ceiling, he tried to push it all down the bitterness, the disappointment, the hollow longing that had never really left him.
He hated how easily she could still get to him.
So he did what he always did: shut it out, sealed it behind walls too high for anyone to climb.