“Get Rid of It, I Don’t Want a Child,” Said the Millionaire CEO — Three Years Later, He Saw Her With Triplets

The city had transformed in three years, or perhaps Sandra was the one who had transformed and the city was just different through her new eyes. She left the triplets with Rosalind, her first separation from them since birth, and the absence felt like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. Every instinct screamed to go back, to protect them from a world that felt too dangerous.

But Rosalind had practically pushed her onto the bus, insisting that Sandra needed this, needed to remember who she was beyond mother, beyond survivor. The hotel was in the arts district, deliberately chosen for its distance from the financial towers where Tony lived his separate life.

Sandra unpacked in a room that felt too quiet, too empty, missing the chaos of three voices demanding her attention simultaneously. She had prepared for this conference like it was a battle, researching attendees and planning her approach, determined to find clients who could elevate her business beyond local shops and small contracts.

The first day was overwhelming, hundreds of designers competing for attention, everyone glossy and confident in ways that made Sandra feel like an imposter. But she pushed through the discomfort, forcing herself to network, to pitch, to pretend she belonged in these spaces. By the second day, she had found her rhythm, discovered that her work spoke for itself, that survival had given her a perspective most of these privileged artists could never access.

Jasmine Park appeared like an answered prayer, a gallery owner from Seattle who stopped at Sandra’s portfolio display and actually looked, really studied each piece instead of the polite glance most people offered. She was sharp and funny, her success story involving multiple failures before she finally broke through. She told Sandra that talent was cheap, but perspective was priceless, and Sandra had both.

“I need a complete rebrand,” Jasmine pulled out her phone, showing Sandra her current logo, a generic design that said nothing about her gallery’s mission. “I want something that captures resilience, beauty emerging from struggle, art as survival. Can you do that?”

Sandra’s heart raced, recognizing the opportunity, the door opening. “I can do that.”

They talked for hours, the conversation evolving from business to personal, Jasmine sharing her own story of building something from nothing, of refusing to let failure define her. By the time they parted, Sandra had a contract that would pay more than she had earned in the entire previous year, validation that she was actually good at this, that she could build a career and not just survive.

Walking back to her hotel that evening, Sandra felt something shift inside her, a recognition that she had not just survived, but was beginning to thrive. The street was crowded with people heading to restaurants and bars, the city alive with possibility, and she was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice the commotion ahead until she was almost through it.

Cameras flashed, security guards created a perimeter, and then she heard his voice. That familiar cadence that still occasionally haunted her dreams.

Tony Nelson stood outside an upscale restaurant, surrounded by men in expensive suits, their laughter sharp and exclusive, celebrating something that probably involved millions of dollars and decisions that affected thousands of lives. He looked older, harder, his hair touched with grey that somehow made him more distinguished instead of aging him. The suit he wore probably cost more than Sandra’s rent, his watch catching light like a small sun on his wrist.

This was his world—power and privilege and casual wealth. Sandra was suddenly aware of her second-hand dress, her scuffed shoes, the distance between their universes. She should have kept walking, should have disappeared into the crowd before he noticed her, but something made her freeze. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was the success still glowing in her chest from Jasmine’s contract, maybe it was just exhaustion from running.

Their eyes met across twenty feet of crowded sidewalk, and Sandra watched recognition hit him like a physical blow. Tony’s face drained of colour, his hand gripping the doorframe for balance, his mouth opening but no sound emerging. The men around him continued talking, unaware of the earthquake happening in his head, and Sandra felt a savage satisfaction at his shock, his obvious distress, proof that she had haunted him the way he had haunted her.

For a moment, neither of them moved, caught in the gravity of their shared history. Sandra could see questions forming in his eyes, calculations about what to say, how to approach this, whether his friends were watching. Before he could speak, before he could shatter the peace she had worked so hard to build, Sandra turned and walked away.

She didn’t run. She refused to give him that satisfaction. She just moved with deliberate purpose, her heels clicking against concrete, her spine straight despite the panic flooding her system. One block, then another, then she turned a corner and collapsed against a building, gasping for air like she had been drowning, her hands shaking so hard she had to press them against the brick to make them still.

The conference ended the next day, and Sandra fled back to her aunt’s house like a refugee escaping war. The triplets mobbed her the moment she walked through the door, their voices overlapping in demands for attention, stories tumbling out about their adventures with Aunt Rosalind. Sandra held them all at once, breathing in their familiar smell, feeling her heart settle back into its proper rhythm.

“How was it?” Rosalind asked later, after the children were asleep.

“Good, really good.” Sandra pulled out the contract with Jasmine, proof that the trip had been worth the terror. “I saw him though. Tony. Just for a second.”

Rosalind’s expression tightened. “Did he approach you?”

“No, I walked away before he could.” Sandra stared at the contract, feeling the accomplishment dim under the weight of that encounter. “I thought I was over it, Aunt Ro. I thought I had moved past all that anger and hurt, but seeing him brought it all back like it happened yesterday.”

“Healing isn’t linear, baby.” Rosalind squeezed her hand. “Sometimes old wounds reopen just to remind us they existed. Doesn’t mean you haven’t healed. Just means you’re human.”

Sandra wanted to believe that, wanted to think the encounter was just a blip, meaningless in the context of her new life. But two weeks later, standing in the park while the triplets played on the swings, she felt eyes on her back with such intensity that her skin prickled with awareness.

She turned slowly, already knowing what she would see.

Tony stood by the playground entrance, staring at Lorelai, Amelie, and Caspian with an expression she couldn’t decipher. He had found her somehow, had tracked her down, had invaded the safe space she had built far from his reach. The children were laughing, completely oblivious to the man watching them, to the biological connection neither side acknowledged.

Lorelai’s hair caught the afternoon sun, dark curls bouncing as she pumped her legs on the swing. Amelie sat in the sand, drawing patterns with a stick, her concentration absolute. Caspian ran between them, his joy infectious, his innocence complete.

Sandra watched Tony watching them, saw him do the math, count backwards to that night in the penthouse, when he had tried to erase them with money and cold words. His face was a study in devastation, realization crashing over him in waves, understanding what he had lost, what he had thrown away, what he could never have back.

Lorelai noticed her mother’s sudden stillness and ran over, her small hand gripping Sandra’s leg, her dark eyes suspicious of the stranger making her mother’s face do scary things.

“Who’s that man, Mama?”

“Nobody.” Sandra’s voice came out harder than she intended. “He’s nobody important.”

Tony took a step forward, his mouth opening, and Sandra finally found her voice, sharp enough to cut.

“Don’t.” The word stopped him cold. “Don’t you dare come near them. Don’t you dare think you have any right to look at them, to know them, to exist in their world. You made your choice three years ago. Live with it.”

She grabbed Lorelai’s hand, called to Amelie and Caspian, and walked away from the park, from Tony, from the confrontation she wasn’t ready to have. Behind her, she could feel his presence, could imagine his face twisted with emotions he had no right to feel, could sense the beginning of something she had feared since the moment she chose to keep them.

Tony Nelson had seen his children, and that changed everything, whether Sandra was ready for it or not.