She looked at him, confused. “Hypothetically?”

“Specifically.”

For the next hour, Elena walked him through her dream plan: renovations, more staff, educational programs, and an emergency fund to help families before they reached the breaking point.

“How much?” Richard asked.

“To do all of it… we’re talking several million dollars. It’s an impossible amount.”

Richard was silent for a long moment. Then he pulled out his phone and dialed his personal lawyer. “Lopez, I need you to prepare a substantial donation to a charitable organization. Yes, today.”

Elena stared in astonishment as Richard discussed figures that surpassed her wildest dreams. After hanging up, he turned to her. “You’ll have your funding. But I need you to do something for me. I want you to create a preventative support program, to help families in crisis before they have to give up their children.”

As Richard prepared to leave, Elena stopped him. “May I ask, what prompted this?”

Richard paused at the door. “Yesterday, I met a woman who risked everything to protect two babies. It reminded me that some battles are worth fighting, no matter the odds.”

Driving back to his mansion, he felt a shift within himself. He had fired Maria for breaking his rules, but hadn’t he just shattered his own, donating a fortune on an impulse? The difference, he realized, was the motivation. Maria had acted out of love. He had acted out of… what? Guilt? Redemption? Or maybe, for the first time in decades, something that felt dangerously like compassion.

When he arrived home, Maria’s modest car was in the driveway. His heart hammered in his chest. He found her in the kitchen, quietly packing her personal items into a cardboard box. There was no sign of the twins, and he felt a strange pang of disappointment.

“Maria,” he said softly.

She turned, her eyes red from crying, but her posture remained dignified. “Mr. Sterling. I came to get my things.”

“We need to talk,” he said. “It’s not about a reference. It’s about the babies. And you. And a decision I need to reconsider.”

For the first time since he’d returned, a flicker of hope—followed immediately by caution—shone in Maria’s eyes.

“The babies,” Richard began, the words feeling heavy and foreign. “Where are they?”

“With my mother,” Maria replied, her voice a near whisper. “Despite her condition, she insisted. She said she’d rather collapse caring for them than live with the guilt of not trying.”

Richard closed his eyes. The image of a frail grandmother sacrificing her health for two infants struck him with the force of a physical blow. It was a kind of unconditional love he’d only ever observed from a distance.

“Maria, what I’m about to say will sound… improbable,” he said, taking a step closer. “This morning, I went to a place I haven’t been in over twenty-five years. I went to the orphanage where I grew up.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. Richard had never shared a single detail of his past with anyone.

“I lost my parents in a car crash when I was five,” he continued. “I spent the next thirteen years of my life in that place, watching kids come and go. For all these years, I’ve convinced myself that solitude was strength. I built my empire on the belief that emotions were liabilities.”

He walked to the window, gazing out at his perfect, sterile garden. “But yesterday, when I saw you with Leo and Lily, when I heard the passion in your voice as you defended them… something inside me broke. Or maybe,” he mused, “something was finally fixed.”

He turned back to her, his own eyes now glistening. “This mansion has eight bedrooms. Two of them could easily become a nursery and a playroom. There’s enough space for your mother to live here comfortably, with access to the medical care she needs.”

Maria brought a hand to her chest, her heart pounding.

“I’m asking you,” Richard said, his voice thick with emotion, “to help me turn this empty house into a home. I’m asking you to stay—not just as my employee, but as… as part of something more.”

Tears streamed freely down Maria’s cheeks. “Mr. Sterling… why? Why are you doing this?”

He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Because you showed me what it means to have someone who would fight for you, unconditionally. That’s something I never had, but it’s something those babies have in you. I want… I need to be a part of that.”

A new, hopeful silence filled the room.

“Please,” he said, the word feeling unfamiliar on his tongue. “Stay. Let me help. Let’s give them the family they deserve. The family we all deserve.”

Maria looked at the man before her—no longer a cold, distant employer, but a fellow soul who understood loss. She thought of Leo and Lily, of her ailing mother, of the impossible future she had been facing just hours before.

“Okay,” she whispered, a smile breaking through her tears. “Okay, Richard. We’ll stay.”

“There’s just one condition,” she added, a playful light returning to her eyes.

“Anything.”

“You have to let me teach you how to change a diaper. Because something tells me you’re going to need a lot of lessons.”