Alexander was not a man accustomed to being dismissed.
He had built empires from boardrooms, charmed investors with a single look, and disarmed critics with carefully measured words.
A "no" from anyone else was never permanent; more often, it was an invitation to try again, better.
But Sophia's "no" lingered. It replayed in his mind not as an insult, but as a challenge.
The next morning, instead of heading straight to his office in the glass tower that bore his name, Alexander found himself passing through the park again.
His assistant had texted twice already: meetings stacked, investors waiting.
Yet his steps slowed when he reached the bench.
And there she was.
Sophia sat in the same spot, a thermos balanced beside her, notebook in hand this time.
She wasn't reading, she was writing.
Her brow furrowed slightly in concentration, her lips parted as though silently mouthing words to herself.
Alexander lingered, debating whether to interrupt.
For the first time in years, he felt… nervous.
He cleared his throat lightly.
"Careful," he said, his tone edged with playful ease.
"People might start thinking this bench belongs to you."
Sophia looked up, her expression calm but not unfriendly. "And what would it matter if they did?"
He arched a brow. "Then I'd need to negotiate terms of use. I'm fairly skilled at contracts."
That earned him the faintest curve of her lips, not quite a smile, but close enough to stir something warm in his chest.
She shook her head, returning her gaze to the notebook.
"Not everything requires negotiation. Some things "simply belong."
He studied her quietly, resisting the instinct to press further.
Instead, he gestured toward the notebook.
"May I ask what holds your attention today?"
Sophia hesitated, then closed it. "Stories," she said. "They're not ready to be shared."
He nodded, accepting her boundaries without argument. That, in itself, felt like progress.
For the next few days, Alexander found himself orbiting her world in subtle ways.
Sometimes he passed through the park with coffee he didn't drink, leaving one by her bench without comment.
But other times, he will sit at a respectful distance, pretending to check his phone but sneaking glances at the way she scribbles words, lost to her own rhythm.
Sophia noticed, of course.
"You know," she said one morning without looking up, "you don't need to linger as if you're invisible.
"You could just' sit."
It disarmed him, her quiet candor. He sat.
And so began the chase, not with flowers, not with expensive dinners or extravagant gestures, but with presence.
With listening.
With the slow unraveling of a man who had always believed power was the only language worth speaking.
He didn't tell her yet who he was, what name he carried, or the fortune at his back.
She never asked. And for reasons he couldn't quite explain, he preferred it that way.
What unsettled him most was that Sophia treated him not as Alexander Carter, the name etched on skyscrapers, but simply as Alexander, a man intruding on her solitude.
And for the first time in years, he wanted to be only that.