Updated Apr 16, 2026 • ~17 min read
Chapter 4: Working Together
Luna
The first week of working for Matthias Wolfe is absolute torture—not because he’s a bad boss, which would at least be a straightforward problem Luna could complain about to Carmen over wine, but because he’s devastatingly good at his job in a way that makes it impossible to dismiss him as just another rich CEO who bought his way to the top, and watching him work with that brilliant, focused intensity reminds her way too much of the man she met four years ago, the one who made her feel seen and valued and special before disappearing from her life completely.
He’s demanding, expecting reports within hours instead of days and asking questions that demonstrate he’s actually read every document she’s provided instead of just skimming executive summaries like her previous bosses did—but his demands are reasonable, his deadlines achievable, and he says please and thank you more than any C-suite executive Luna has ever worked for, which somehow makes it harder to maintain her professional distance because it would be easier if he were just an entitled jerk she could hate without complication.
Luna keeps her interactions with him ruthlessly professional, responding to his requests with efficient precision and volunteering nothing personal, maintaining the kind of cool courtesy that makes it clear their relationship begins and ends with work—but it’s exhausting, this constant vigilance, this perpetual awareness of him in the office, the way her body reacts every time he walks past her desk or leans over her shoulder to look at her computer screen, the familiar scent of his cologne making her stomach flip with sense memory she wishes she could delete.
By Wednesday, Luna is ready to scream from the tension of it all—the stress of pretending Matthias is just another boss when he’s the father of her child, the man she fell for in one perfect night, the person who hurt her more than anyone when he ghosted her and left her pregnant and alone, and now he’s here, unavoidable, asking her for coffee preferences and meeting schedules like they’re strangers starting fresh instead of two people with history so complicated that Luna doesn’t even know where to begin untangling it.
Sofia asks about work that evening while Luna is making dinner, standing on her little step stool at the counter to “help” by stirring pasta sauce with the intense concentration that three-year-olds bring to simple tasks.
“Mama, do you like your new boss?” Sofia asks with the innocent directness of a child who hasn’t learned that some questions are complicated, and Luna’s hand freezes mid-chop on the vegetables she’s cutting for their salad.
“He’s… fine,” Luna manages, because she can’t exactly tell her daughter that her new boss is Sofia’s father who doesn’t know she exists, that he’s the man Luna has spent three years simultaneously missing and resenting, that seeing him every day is like pressing on a bruise that never quite healed. “Why do you ask, baby?”
“You look sad when you come home,” Sofia observes with the kind of emotional intelligence that sometimes catches Luna off guard because her daughter is only three but already reads people better than most adults. “Are you sad because of your boss?”
Yes, Luna wants to say. I’m sad because the man I loved—or thought I could love, given the chance—is back in my life and doesn’t know about you, and I’m terrified of what happens when he finds out, terrified he’ll try to take you from me or reject you the way he rejected me, and I don’t know how to protect you from either of those outcomes.
But what she actually says is, “Mama’s just tired from working hard. I’m not sad, I promise. How about we have extra chocolate chips on our ice cream tonight to make everything better?”
Sofia’s face lights up the way it always does at the mention of chocolate, the promised treat enough to distract her from uncomfortable questions, and Luna is grateful for the short attention span of toddlers even as guilt twists in her chest because she’s lying to her daughter, hiding something fundamental, and eventually that’s going to have consequences she’s not prepared for.
Thursday morning, Matthias tries to talk to her about “that night” for the third time this week, catching her in the break room where she’s refilling her coffee mug and trying to wake up after another night of stress-induced insomnia.
“Luna, about four years ago—” he starts, and Luna cuts him off before he can finish the sentence because she cannot have this conversation, not here, not now, not when she’s running on four hours of sleep and her emotional defenses are too low to withstand whatever justification or apology or explanation he’s about to offer.
“Ancient history, Mr. Wolfe,” she says firmly, keeping her eyes on her coffee mug instead of his face because looking at him is dangerous, makes her remember things she’s trying to forget—how his hands felt on her skin, how he looked at her like she mattered, how he promised to call and then didn’t. “We both have work to do.”
“I looked for you,” Matthias says, and there’s something almost desperate in his voice that makes Luna’s traitorous heart clench despite her best efforts to stay detached. “I lost your number—my phone corrupted it somehow—and I tried to find you through the catering company but they said you didn’t work there, and I even hired an investigator but he couldn’t track you down with just a first name—”
Luna’s head snaps up at that, shock momentarily overriding her determination to keep this professional, because he hired an investigator? He actually tried to find her?
But then reality reasserts itself, cold and harsh, because if he really wanted to find her, he could have—he’s Matthias Wolfe, billionaire CEO with unlimited resources, and Luna is just a working-class girl from Queens who’s never hidden her identity or gone off the grid, so if his investigator couldn’t find her, it’s because Matthias didn’t actually care enough to look very hard.
“It’s fine,” Luna hears herself say, and her voice comes out flat, emotionless, nothing like the turmoil currently churning in her gut. “One night stand. No expectations.”
It’s what she’s been telling herself for four years, the mantra she repeated through her pregnancy and Sofia’s birth and every exhausting moment of solo parenting—that she had no expectations, that she knew what that night was, that she’s fine without him.
Except she’s lying, has been lying this whole time, because she did have expectations—she expected him to call like he promised, to give them a chance to see if that incredible connection was real or just chemistry and wishful thinking, to at least acknowledge that what they shared meant something instead of disappearing like it never happened.
And when she found out she was pregnant six weeks later, staring at that positive test in her tiny bathroom while her hands shook and her mind raced through impossible calculations—she expected that if she could just find him, if she could just tell him, he would step up, would be there, would prove that the man who looked at her with such tenderness wasn’t just playing a role for one night.
But she couldn’t find him either, had only his first name and the knowledge that he worked in venture capital, and when she tried Googling “Matthias venture capital New York” she got hundreds of results with no way to know which one was him, and eventually she had to accept that he didn’t want to be found, that whatever they had ended when he walked out of his apartment that morning.
So she made the decision—the only decision she could make—to raise her baby alone, to build a life without him, to protect Sofia from the possibility of a father who might reject her or might try to take her away or might show up and disappear again, leaving new wounds in his wake.
“Luna—” Matthias tries again, but she’s already moving past him toward the door because this conversation is over, has to be over before she says something she can’t take back or breaks down crying in the office break room like some pathetic woman who can’t handle seeing her ex.
Except Matthias isn’t her ex, not really—he’s the father of her child who doesn’t know he has a daughter, and Luna needs to keep it that way, needs to maintain her walls and her distance and her secrets because letting him in, letting him know about Sofia, would mean giving him power to hurt both of them in ways Luna isn’t willing to risk.
Friday afternoon brings a new complication when Matthias calls her into his office for what he describes as a “strategy session” but feels more like an interrogation about her background, her career goals, her life outside of work—questions that seem innocent enough on the surface but make Luna’s anxiety spike because she can’t talk about her life without mentioning Sofia, and she can’t mention Sofia without the whole carefully constructed wall of lies crumbling down around her.
“Tell me about yourself,” Matthias says, leaning back in his chair behind his desk with that intense focus that makes Luna feel like she’s the only person in the world, the same look that captivated her four years ago and terrifies her now. “Your resume shows you’ve been with Innovate Solutions for two years, but before that there’s a gap. What were you doing?”
Having your baby, Luna thinks but doesn’t say, her mind frantically searching for a version of the truth that won’t reveal everything.
“I took some time off after college,” she says carefully, which is technically true even if it leaves out the whole pregnant-and-new-mother part. “Dealt with some personal matters. Then I started looking for work in my field.”
“Personal matters?” Matthias echoes, and Luna can see him filing that phrase away, analyzing it for hidden meaning. “Nothing serious, I hope?”
“Nothing that affects my work performance,” Luna deflects, which is both true and completely inadequate because motherhood affects everything about her, shapes every decision she makes and every priority she sets, but Matthias doesn’t need to know that—can’t know that, not yet, maybe not ever.
Matthias studies her for a long moment, and Luna has the uncomfortable feeling that he sees right through her evasions, that he knows she’s hiding something even if he doesn’t know what—but eventually he just nods and moves on to questions about project management and software proficiency and other safe topics that Luna can answer without fear of accidentally revealing her secret.
By the time she leaves his office an hour later, Luna’s nerves are completely fried, her professional composure hanging by a thread, and she makes it exactly three steps toward her desk before Matthias calls after her.
“Luna, wait—”
She stops, closes her eyes briefly against the exhaustion and frustration and residual longing that his voice always triggers, then turns back with her most professional expression firmly in place.
“Yes, Mr. Wolfe?”
“Please stop calling me that,” Matthias says, and there’s something almost pleading in his expression that catches Luna off guard. “We slept together. We shared something. You can call me Matthias.”
“That was four years ago,” Luna says, even as part of her brain is screaming that she says his name every day—when Sofia asks about her daddy (Luna always changes the subject), when Carmen asks if she’s ever going to tell “Mr. Wolfe Industries” that he has a daughter (Luna always says “not yet”), when Luna lies awake at night remembering how it felt to have him inside her, his name on her lips as she fell apart in his arms.
“It doesn’t feel like four years,” Matthias counters quietly. “It feels like yesterday. Like no time passed at all.”
Luna’s breath catches because she feels it too, that strange compression of time that makes four years collapse into nothing, that makes her body remember his touch like it was this morning instead of a lifetime ago—but she can’t acknowledge that, can’t admit that she still thinks about him, because that would mean lowering her defenses, and her defenses are the only thing protecting her and Sofia from the chaos that honesty would bring.
“I need to pick up my daughter,” Luna hears herself say, the words escaping before she can stop them, and she sees Matthias’s eyes widen slightly at the unexpected information. “Daycare closes at six.”
She mentioned Sofia earlier this week when she had to leave for the fever emergency, but saying it now feels different, feels like she’s offering him a piece of her real life, a glimpse behind the professional mask she’s been maintaining so carefully.
“Of course,” Matthias says, and Luna can see a thousand questions forming behind his eyes—questions about her daughter, about the father, about how her life has changed since their night together—but he doesn’t ask them, just nods and says, “See you Monday.”
Luna escapes before he can say anything else, grabbing her purse and coat and practically running for the elevator, and she doesn’t let herself relax until she’s in the subway heading toward Queens, the Friday evening crowd pressing around her in familiar discomfort that at least has the benefit of being predictable, controllable, nothing like the emotional minefield that her workplace has become.
Carmen takes one look at her face when Luna arrives to pick up Sofia and immediately puts on coffee, shooing the last of the other parents out the door with promises that their kids’ artwork will be ready Monday and steering Luna toward the small office in the back where they can talk while Sofia plays in the main room.
“That bad?” Carmen asks, and Luna wants to laugh or cry or possibly both because “bad” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
“He keeps trying to talk about that night,” Luna admits, accepting the coffee mug Carmen presses into her hands and wrapping her fingers around the warmth like a lifeline. “Keeps saying he looked for me, that he lost my number, that it wasn’t his fault we lost touch.”
“Do you believe him?” Carmen asks with the directness that Luna values even when it’s uncomfortable, and Luna has to really think about it, has to examine Matthias’s behavior this week for signs of deception or manipulation.
“I don’t know,” she says finally. “Maybe? He seems genuine. But he’s also a billionaire CEO who’s probably excellent at seeming genuine when he wants something.”
“And what does he want?” Carmen presses, and Luna knows what her best friend is really asking—does he want you, or does he want to ease his conscience about ghosting you, or does he want something else entirely?
“I think he wants closure,” Luna says, because that’s the safest answer, the one that doesn’t require her to examine the way Matthias looks at her like she’s the only person in the room, the way his voice goes soft when he says her name, the way he keeps finding excuses to talk to her beyond what’s professionally necessary. “Or maybe he wants to rewrite history so he’s not the villain in our story.”
“Are you going to tell him about Sofia?” Carmen asks quietly, and Luna’s hands tighten around her coffee mug because that’s the question, isn’t it, the question that’s been haunting her all week.
“I don’t know,” Luna whispers, and it’s the truth—she doesn’t know if telling Matthias about Sofia would be brave or stupid, protective or cruel, the right thing or the worst mistake she could make. “What if he tries to take her from me?”
“He can’t,” Carmen says firmly. “You’re her mother. You’ve raised her alone for three years. No court would take her away from you.”
“But he has money,” Luna counters, voicing the fear that keeps her awake at night. “Lawyers. Power. I have nothing. If he wanted custody—”
“Then you get a lawyer too,” Carmen interrupts. “You fight. But Luna, you don’t even know if he’d want custody. You don’t know what kind of father he’d be. You don’t know anything because you won’t let yourself find out.”
“I’m protecting my daughter,” Luna says defensively, even though Carmen’s words sting with truth that Luna doesn’t want to acknowledge.
“Or you’re protecting yourself,” Carmen suggests gently. “From getting hurt again. From hoping he’ll step up and being disappointed when he doesn’t.”
Luna doesn’t have an answer for that, can’t defend against the accusation because it might be true—she might be hiding Sofia not just to protect her daughter but to protect herself, to avoid the vulnerability of admitting that Matthias’s abandonment hurt her, that she wanted him to fight for them, that some pathetic part of her still hopes he’ll prove to be the man she thought she met that night.
“I need more time,” Luna says finally, and Carmen nods even though they both know that time is running out, that working with Matthias every day makes discovery inevitable, that eventually something will slip or someone will mention Sofia at the wrong moment or Luna will simply run out of energy for maintaining this elaborate deception.
Sofia runs into the office then, breaking the heavy moment with the cheerful chaos that three-year-olds excel at, throwing herself at Luna’s legs and chattering about her day at daycare—about the blocks she built and the song she learned and the snack she didn’t like—and Luna scoops her daughter up and breathes in the familiar scent of her hair, letting Sofia’s presence ground her in what matters.
This, Luna reminds herself. This is what matters. Sofia’s happiness, Sofia’s security, Sofia’s future.
Not Luna’s unresolved feelings for a man who left her once and could leave again.
Not the impossible hope that maybe, just maybe, Matthias Wolfe could be the father Sofia deserves and the partner Luna stopped letting herself dream about.
Just Sofia. Just keeping her safe.
Even if that means lying to everyone, including herself, about what she really wants.
Monday comes too soon, and with it the return to Matthias’s office and the exhausting performance of professional distance, and Luna spends the weekend preparing herself for another week of torture, another five days of pretending her heart doesn’t race when he walks into the room, another forty hours of hiding the most important part of her life from the only man who has the right to know about it.
She’s playing a dangerous game, Luna knows—lying by omission, keeping secrets that will only get harder to reveal as time passes, building a house of cards that one strong wind could collapse.
But the alternative—telling Matthias about Sofia and dealing with the consequences—feels even more dangerous, more terrifying, more likely to destroy the fragile peace Luna has built for herself and her daughter over the past three years.
So she keeps lying.
Keeps pretending.
Keeps telling herself it’s fine, that one night stand meant nothing, that she has no expectations.
And tries not to notice how the lies taste more bitter every time she tells them.
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