“Madam, I’m terribly sorry. I’ll remove them immediately.”
Victoria raised her hand without looking away from the boys.
“No. Let them talk.”
The older boy swallowed nervously.
“We just thought… if you weren’t going to finish it…”
His voice faded on the last word.
But Victoria’s racing heart had nothing to do with sympathy.
It was something deeper.
Something far more unsettling.
The younger boy had a scatter of freckles across his nose.
The older one had thick, dark curls that refused to stay neat no matter how much someone probably tried.
Victoria knew those details.
Knew them in a way that made old wounds ache.
Fifteen years earlier, after a vicious divorce that had filled headlines and courtrooms, her ex-husband Daniel Langford had disappeared with their twin sons before the final custody ruling could stop him.
Victoria had searched relentlessly.
Private investigators. Court orders. Endless leads that stretched across multiple states.
But every trail eventually went cold.
Eventually, she buried her grief beneath work. Skyscrapers were easier to rebuild than a family you could no longer find.
Now two hungry boys stood beside her table asking for leftovers.