He looked at me over the boys’ heads.

There was a dark circle under his eyes, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble.

The silence in the room felt heavy, almost fragile.

I knew what he had just thrown away.

The Sinclair merger had been on the front page of the financial news for six months.

It was the deal that would have secured Whitmore Enterprises’ dominance for the next decade.

And he had just turned off his phone.

“You should not have done that,” I said, my voice cracking slightly.

“You belong in that boardroom.”

“No,” Daniel said.

“I belong here.”

He sat on the edge of the mattress, his long legs cramped in the narrow space between the bed and the visitor’s chair.

He looked completely out of place in the sterile room.

His tailored suit was wrinkled, and his silk tie was loosened at the collar.

The plastic cup of water on the bedside table rattled slightly as a heavy truck passed on the street below.

Outside, the sky was a flat, dull grey.

A light drizzle had begun to smear the glass of the window.