Page 30 of Bound in Matrimony

Because now, I need that too.

Chapter Seventeen

Knox

The hospital roomis quiet except for the soft beeping of monitors and Seraphina's even breathing as she sleeps. I stand by the window, cradling Claire against my chest, her weight almost nothing in my arms. Outside, Manhattan continues its relentless pace—taxis honking, people rushing, deals being made and broken. The empire I built brick by bloody brick carries on without me, and for the first time in my adult life, I don't give a damn. The world beyond this room might as well not exist. Reality has condensed to this: my wife sleeping peacefully after bringing our daughter into the world, and this impossibly small being nestled against my heart. Claire Vance. My daughter. The words still feel foreign in my mind, too monumental to fully comprehend.

I shift Claire slightly, supporting her head the way the nurses showed me, and study her face with the same intensity I'd bring to examining a rival company's weaknesses. But there are no weaknesses here—only perfection. Her skin is impossibly soft, flushed pink with new life. Dark hair, like mine, covers her headin silky wisps. Her eyes, when they occasionally flutter open, hold the universe.

She makes a small sound—not quite a cry, more of a questioning murmur—and I instinctively begin to sway, a gentle rocking motion I didn't know my body knew how to perform.

"It's alright," I whisper, my voice rougher than usual. "I've got you."

Her tiny hand escapes the blanket, five perfect fingers splayed against the air. I offer my index finger, and she grasps it with surprising strength. The gesture—so simple, so trusting—hits me like a physical blow. My throat tightens unexpectedly.

"You're going to be strong," I tell her softly. "Like your mother. Smart too. And beautiful. You already are."

Her eyes open at the sound of my voice, unfocused but somehow seeming to look directly into me. I've stared down corporate raiders, faced brutal negotiations without blinking, built an empire through sheer force of will, but this tiny person's gaze undoes me completely.

Something shifts inside my chest—a tectonic movement, breaking apart structures I didn't know existed. Emotion rises, unfamiliar and overwhelming, flooding through cracks in defenses I've maintained since childhood. Before I can stop it, before I even fully understand what's happening, tears blur my vision.

I turn away from the window, moving deeper into the room where shadows hide my face from nonexistent observers. No one can see me. No one except Claire, who continues to hold my finger as if it's her lifeline to this new world.

The first tear falls, landing on the blanket wrapped around my daughter. Then another. And another. Silent at first, and then not silent at all. A sound escapes me—part groan, part sob—that I've never heard myself make before. I sink into the chairbeside Seraphina's bed, cradling Claire closer as my shoulders shake with emotion I can't contain.

I'm crying. Knox Vance—who hasn't shed tears since I was a broken, hungry child watching my mother walk away for the last time—is sobbing over this seven-pound miracle.

"I never knew," I whisper to Claire through tears I make no attempt to stop. "I never knew it was possible to feel this much."

My entire life has been built on control—controlling circumstances, controlling outcomes, controlling my own responses. I've cultivated a reputation for ice-cold precision. For ruthless efficiency. For never showing weakness.

None of that matters now. None of it even feels relevant. The man I was twenty-four hours ago might as well be a stranger.

"I will give you everything," I promise Claire, my voice breaking. "Not just money or opportunities. Everything that matters. Safety. Certainty. Love without condition or reservation."

Her eyes drift closed, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath. Trust in its purest form—complete, unquestioning reliance on my protection. The weight of this responsibility should be crushing. Instead, it feels like salvation.

I think of my own father—absent, then abusive when present. The lessons he taught through his fists and his indifference. The vows I made as a child, curled in the dark, that I would never be like him. That I would never let anyone I loved feel afraid or uncertain or unwanted.

"You will never doubt your worth," I tell Claire fiercely through tears that continue to fall. "You will never wonder if you're loved or wanted or enough. You will never fear that I won't come when you call. I will always be there. Always."

The emotion pouring through me feels endless, decades of carefully controlled feelings finding release. Tears for the child I was, for the father I never had, for the man I became to survive,and for this perfect being who represents a future I never dared imagine.

"Your mother saved me," I confess to Claire. "Before I even knew I needed saving. And now you've saved me again, in a different way."

I wipe my face with my free hand, not embarrassed by the tears but wanting to see my daughter clearly. "Everything is different now. Everything."

And it is. In the space of a day, my priorities have completely realigned. The acquisition I was negotiating last week—the one I was willing to work around the clock to secure—seems utterly insignificant. The competitors I was ruthlessly outmaneuvering might as well not exist. The empire I've built, that I've guarded so jealously, matters only as it serves to protect and provide for the two people in this room.

"I will still be ruthless," I warn Claire softly. "Still demanding. Still obsessive. But it will all be for you now. For you and your mother. The world can burn as long as you two are safe."

I think of the security measures already in place, the trust funds established, the future I've been arranging since the moment I knew Seraphina was pregnant. But those were the actions of a man who understood fatherhood as a concept, not as this visceral, all-consuming reality.

"I will remake the world for you if I have to," I promise, and mean it with every fiber of my being.

A soft sound from the bed draws my attention. Seraphina is awake, watching us with those perceptive green eyes that have always seen too much. How long she's been observing my breakdown, I don't know. And for the first time in my life, I don't care that someone has witnessed me in a moment of complete vulnerability.

"Knox," she whispers, her voice still hoarse from the breathing tube. She reaches out her hand to me.

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