"Long night, Maria?"

Harrison laughed as he crossed Maria's desk on his way to his office. He turned around to watch her gather her things, her eyes were wide open, signs of strain at the edges. They had been working tirelessly in hopes of having everything they needed, done by the end of the eight-month goal before they could reduce their pace. She was giving it her best, and Harrison greatly appreciated her effort.

"Yes sir." She sat down at the desk, setting the files down while he stripped out of his jacket. "Not about work. It was a personal issue, I spent all night at it, so I am a bit hare-brained, but I already have some cups of coffee on the way."

"Everything alright?"

"Right as rain, nothing to worry about." She passed him the folders after quickly sorting through them. "These are the sales report from the stores, some reports from the factories, receipts from our overseas purchases, and the research you asked for."

"You are a miracle worker."

"Thank you." She muttered, looking down at her tablet, focused on what was on her screen. "You have a meeting at ten and three today. Lunch with your mother at one, I have already reserved the tables at the restaurant."

"Thank you. I'll go through these and get them back to you."

As heavy as the workload was, it was considerably lighter compared to when they started. Harrison was down to a few meetings a day, depending on if issues arose during the day. His closing hours were earlier, he had more time to rush home and spend some quality time with his family. He and Josephine were also in a better place, they spent a little more time together, and he had decided to allow her lie about Cassandra to fall away.

He pushed the folders aside, setting his phone on them and resting his head against the table. He laughed to himself when an odd thought came to him. That morning, before he headed out, he caught a glance of himself through the car window and realised how old he seemed. All the long hours seemed to be taking a toll because he looked fifty and felt like a hundred. His bones were almost always sore, his eyes were strained from stress. The veins on the top of his head and across his neck became more pronounced, his skin seemed so drawn.

He needed a long, extended vacation. He wondered if he could fly out of town for a few uninterrupted weeks. Somewhere with a cool beach and king-sized beds that his body could get lost in. He would sleep most of the day and only wake up to enjoy a few brushes of sunlight before sleeping some more.

He was even on the verge of falling asleep when a knock came at his door.

"Mr Clark?"

He sighed, opening his eyes without lifting his head, "What can I do for you, Maria?"

"There is a woman here to see you, and she doesn't have an appointment, but she would really like to speak to you."

He sat us slowly. He was sure it wasn't Cassandra again, Maria would have said so the moment she knocked. "Did she give you her name? She might be a client who has a complaint about our product or something."

"Her name is Elizabeth Claymont."

"Send her in, please."

Harrison had met Josephine's mother once, briefly since her parents were usually out of the country, he never had time to visit them as they planned. The woman was as elegant as Josephine described, tall, not only because of the heels she wore, and with short brown hair. He always found it funny how many similar features she shared with Josephine, the oval face, Greek nose and...on the more obvious side, the height.

She walked over to the desk with her hand out, shaking him as he stood to greet her. Her smile was sunny, so at least he was sure nothing was wrong with Josephine. "I am sorry for showing up here unannounced. You...you know who I am, right?"

"You are Josephine's mother." He waited for her to sit before he took his own seat. The woman was an embodiment of politeness and grace.

"Good. I am sorry to just barge in, as I said before. I was driving by, and I remembered that you owned the building. We have been missing each other for months, so I thought it would be okay to stop by and...you know, say hello."

"I am really sorry about that, Mrs Claymont. After my father's death, I have hardly had time for anything. I am sure you know Josephine was planning a small dinner for us to get to know one another but, as you said, things have just been coming up. Thank you for coming all this way, it was really thoughtful."

"Thank you for receiving me." She beamed and pulled her purse-string from her shoulders as she laid the purse down on the chair because her, "Josephine has talked nonstop about your business, I am very happy for your success. It takes a lot of courage to not give up, especially in this city where competition seems to be everywhere."

"It has been tough, yes. Josephine has been as supportive as she could, trying to make sure we see and talk to each other most days so that work doesn't burry me."

"That also brings me to why I was so interested in meeting you again. I wanted to thank you, personally, for how happy you have made my Josephine. Every time I see or hear from her, she is just so excited and alive."

"Nothing to thank me for."

"Maybe on your end, it's nothing but to me... it's everything. Josephine is my only child. Ever since I gave birth to her, all I wanted was to see her happy. You've done that, truly, made her happy and-"

His entire world stopped spinning, and everything went dark for a minute. The words tried to sink in, but his rational mind was fighting against every syllable. Josephine would not lie to that extent. She told him that she had been orphaned as a child, it was why she had such great love for her mother. The woman raised her with all the love in her heart even though Josephine was never hers. That was the truth, right?

"Y-You gave birth to Josephine?"

Elizabeth chuckled, unaware of his dilemma. She leaned closer to whisper. "Don't tell me you don't know how children are brought into this world. Of course, I gave birth to her. She didn't drop into my lap."

She was making a joke, Harrison was aware of that. He knew that she couldn't even begin to imagine where his confusion was coming from. It's not like Josephine could lie to her own biological mother as well.

Harrison smiled, thinking to himself, "I am about to rid you of your only child."

Elizabeth left a while after she changed the last six months of his life, without even knowing it. She thanked him again for seeing her then left to enjoy the rest of her day while he sat in his office. Stewing. Thinking. Wondering.

He thought back to every day he had spent with Josephine even before they began dating, everything seemed so false. It was one thing to lie about high school, as Mark pointed out, she had been jealous. It was another thing entirely to fabricate a whole new life for herself, one where her mother was no longer her mother and her life was not her life.

When he finally decided to leave the office, he called Josephine to meet up with him at the beach. An offer she gleefully accepted. He had gotten there ahead of her, hoping that the sounds of the waves and ocean breeze would cool him off enough to help him get through their argument. Because he intended to argue.

Harrison took off his suit tie, tossing it into the passenger seat, unbuttoning the first two buttons of his shirt and tugging off his cufflinks off as well. He stood, facing the ocean side with his hands in his pocket and his head bent low as he observed the sea play with his feet. Before long, he heard a car pull up and waited patiently for Josephine to get closer.

"Hey babe, I am so happy you called. I was dying to spend some time with you. How long can you be away from the office?"

He waited until he met her eyes so he could read her expression as he said, "You are not adopted."

The hand she had placed on his elbow dropped, and she frowned a bit before she replied, "If you called me here to insult me or ridicule me, you should cut it out."

Furiously, he yanked her to him by the elbow, "Don't you dare!" he cautioned her harshly, he let go of her arm to put some distance between them. "I know you are not adopted, so don't even dream of lying to me right now."

"Did you have me investigated?"

He growled and sent his hands through his hair; it was all he could to keep from wrapping his fingers around her throat. He was holding onto a little hope that she would clear everything up, but all that hope drowned in the sea of his frustrarion. How could he have trusted this woman so blindly? She always had an odd behaviour when she spoke of her parents, but he never thought much about it.

"Are you serious? Are you insane Josephine? The fact that I might have hired a private investigator bothers you. That's all you care about in this whole conversation?"

"You don't trust my words?"

"Trust? All I ever did was trust whatever came out of your mouth Josephine. I believed everything you told me to the last detail. That is the only reason you were able to make so much of a fool out of me.."

"If you trusted me then you wouldn't have had me investigated. What in the hell kind of trust is that?"

"It was your mother," he yelled, then lowered his voice. "Your mother came to see me today, and it just slipped out of her mouth. She was talking about you, and she mentioned giving birth to you. So if you are not lying, then your mother just miraculously forgot that she adopted you. That's what you are telling me."

"You are being unfair. Let me explain why I did what I did."

He raised his hands to his side in feigned surrender, "There is no need for that because I already know what you are going to say. You had a rough time as a child, and you were scared to lose me? Alternatively, maybe you need to feel secure in our relationship because you never had a stable relationship before. Even better, you are going to start crying."

Josephine flipped her hair back, ignorant about how her careless attitude was stretching the thin rope of calm he was holding on to tightly. The fact that she looked offended annoyed him even more because she had no right.

"You don't have to be sarcastic Harrison. Just let me explain."

"No, keep whatever explanation you have to yourself because your lies are too much for me. Let me make this as clear and as definitive as possible. This relationship is over, and don't even try to say anything because you know what you did."

"Harrison!" she called as he made hisway to his car, but he ignored her and yanked the door of his car open. Shestood at the beach, watching him as he turned on the car and began to reverse.Before she processed that he was actually leaving the beach and ending theirrelationship, he was a long distance away from her