Chapter 179 Chapter 179

Chapter 179 Chapter 179
MICA
The lobby was bustling, filled with the usual morning rush. Staff moved quietly, going about their duties the way Mira had spent four years instilling in them.

She was in charge of hosting the guests and she didn't want anything to go wrong.

She had woken up late and didn't have the time to run through the list Nathan had sent for her.

She had hopped in the next taxi and dashed off to work.

She was busy tagging luggage, sorting room keys, guiding guests. Standing behind the front desk with her clipboard and headset, wrapped tightly in her supervisor's calm composure, she felt in complete control.

But then the automatic glass doors slid open and a wave of players burst through, broad, loud, and filling the space with the restless energy of men ready to collapse after a long flight. Mica guided her team with small, precise gestures, focusing entirely on the logistics.

This was just another high-profile check-in. She had handled dozens like it and nothing would go wrong.

Then he stepped inside and she froze.

Her breath caught violently in her throat and the color completely drained from her face, her hands shook and she couldn't tear her gaze from the player who just entered.

Adonis.

Why the hell did she not think that he would be here? She didn't think so because she thought he was abroad.

He was taller than she remembered.

His shoulders were broader, his jaw sharper, his face bearing the weight of four years of becoming the man he was always destined to be. He walked into the lobby with his heavy kit bag slung over one shoulder, his sharp eyes sweeping the room. Then his gaze landed on the front desk and locked onto her.

Mica’s hands flattened against the counter. Her breath hitched, catching violently in her throat as her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.

He froze in the middle of the crowded lobby. Players moved past him, but the world narrowed down until it was just the two of them staring across the space. The lobby was loud, chaotic, and full of life, but a deafening silence rushed into Mica's ears, drowning it all out.

It's been Four years.

Four long years of keeping his phone number saved, never having the courage to delete it or call it. Four years of turning off the television whenever his face flashed on the sports news, sickened by the sting of his absence. Four years of staring into Leo's eyes every morning, seeing the ghost of the man she had tried so desperately to forget.

She watched his mouth form her name, "Mica" and he took a slow step toward the desk.

Mica forced her spine straight, wrapping her professional armor around herself like a cold coat. She looked at him with a face set to stone.

"Welcome to the West Hotel," she said, her voice tight, trembling at the edges. "You will be shown to your room."

Adonis stared at her, his eyes dark, searching, and filled with a raw, agonizing hunger.

"Mica," he rasped.

Hearing her name fall from his lips after four years of agonizing silence sliced through her chest like a blade. She clenched her jaw so hard her teeth ached and forced her eyes down to the computer screen.

"I'll need your team's reservation code to enter your details and then you'll be directed to your room."

"Mica," he said again, taking another step closer. He leaned over the counter, his presence overwhelming, his eyes cutting straight through her uniform, her title, and her fragile composure.

A teammate stepped up beside him, holding out a phone with the group's reservation code. With shaking fingers, Mica processed the keys through sheer muscle memory, handed them over, and directed the group toward the elevators, keeping her eyes glued to the glowing screen.

Adonis did not move a muscle.

His teammate grabbed the keycards and led the rest of the team away, but Adonis stayed rooted to the floor. He stared at her, his breathing heavy, while Mica stared blindly at her monitor, her skin burning under the weight of his gaze.

"Can I help you with something else?" she asked, unable to look up.

"You know you can," he whispered, his voice laced with a deep, haunting pain.

She finally looked up, meeting his eyes, and four years of buried agony came rushing back to crush her chest. The unbearable heartbreak, the lingering love, the bitter rage, the suffocating loneliness of raising a child alone and the painful question Leo had asked her just yesterday, all swelled behind her eyes in a wave of unshed tears.

She opened her mouth to tell him to leave.

The main lobby doors suddenly burst open.

"MOMMY!"

Leo charged through the entrance at full speed, his jacket half-unzipped, his little backpack bouncing wildly against his shoulders. Cara sprinted two steps behind him, yelling for him to slow down, but Leo didn't hear a word. He sprinted across the polished floor with the absolute devotion of a four-year-old who had spotted his mother and nothing else in the world mattered.

He reached the front desk, threw his small arms around Mica's legs, and buried his face into her trousers.

"I wanted to say bye-bye, Mommy, before nursery!" he beamed, looking up with a radiant smile.
Mica looked down at her son, her heart leaping into her throat and panic sets in.

"No, Adonis can't know Leo is his son."

Adonis looked down at the boy and Mica quickly put Leo behind her.

Leo picked up on the sudden, suffocating shift in the air. He glanced up at his mother's pale face from behind then peered at Adonis with the wide, unguarded curiosity of a child.

A violent spasm twisted Adonis gut and he gripped the leather strap of his kit bag so tightly his knuckles turned stark white.

Mommy.

The boy had called her Mommy.

Mica was a mother. It was a reminder that she was married, she even birthed a child for the bastard who was her husband.

Bitter, toxic ice settled over his heart. It tore him apart from the inside out. He was looking at her husband's son,the child of the man she abandoned him for when he was stranded on an island, the man she had walked out of the church with in a white dress while Adonis watched helplessly from the street as her car drove away.

She had built a life without him.
She had a child. A home. A family that belonged entirely to someone else.

Adonis stood there, suffocating under a wave of devastating jealousy and unquenched love, his chest heaving in a painful agonizing yet familiar way, ripping a hole right through his soul.

He hoisted his heavy bag higher on his shoulder.

He looked at Mica one last time. Her face was a storm of raw, unreadable emotion, but he didn't try to decipher it, he had lost his head a moment there when he first saw her, acting like he cared while he hated her. It was just a mistake.

He turned on his heel a
nd walked slowly toward the elevators, every step feeling like he was dragging a mountain behind him.