A silent apartment greeted Dakota when he walked through the doorway. The fish tank in the corner continued to bubble away while his two goldfish swam around lazily. He envied their unhurried movements. There were many days he'd spent what felt like hours watching them.

Dakota dropped his suitcases by the couch and fell onto his green couch. Once upon a time he had a gorgeous white leather living room set and a dark mahogany table that sat at the center of the room. He'd gotten rid of them in favor of more child friendly fabric. That was before.

A phone call interrupted his plans for a nap. Excitement made his heart speed up. It could be her, train girl, deciding to give him a chance. His hand shook as he reached for his phone and thoughts of her rounded cheeks and bright smile crowded his mind. Just the thought of finally going out on a date after Liz.

It wasn't Mariana.

He barked a hello into the phone and grumbled through the entire list of problems he was being given by his assistant. "I'll be there in an hour," he promised.

Laurier Incorporated took up the top five floors of the Seaver Building which overlooked downtown Los Angeles. Its employees kept a quiet buzz of conversation as they worked. Men and women in business attire nodded with friendly smiles to Dakota on his way to his office.

One of his assistants, Marlene, reached out a hand to stop him before he could get to the lobby before his office. Her eyes were wide and couldn't settle on any one part of his face for long. "Look, I don't know how she slipped security, but they won't come to forcibly remove her and she's not listening to reason," she said in a rush.

Dakota looked over her shoulder and grit his teeth. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks to hide the small tremble. "It's alright, Marlene. I can handle it."

"Are you sure? She might be pregnant but I'll fight her if you want," Marlene offered. She raised her fists and scowled. "Put me in, coach."

Her antics pulled a laugh out of Dakota. "Easy, feisty-pants. Go get the phone," he directed her. After watching her walk back to her desk, Dakota took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

The side of his office that faced the rest of the workspace was made up of glass that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Even from across the room he could see the uninvited guest surrounded by security guards in his office. The messy bun of bleached blonde hair was unmistakable. All heads turned to him when he walked in.

"About time," Eliza muttered. "See, I told you I was meeting him here. Get out." She waved a dismissive hand at the guards.

"It's alright," Dakota assured them. He held the door as they filed out. Keeping the audience that could clearly see them through the glass, Dakota leaned against the edge of his desk. The white sleeves of his dress shirt pulled up from his wrists as he crossed his arms. "Say your piece and get out. It's late and I want to go back home."

Eliza rolled her eyes. "Nice to see you too."

"I never said it was nice to see you. Get on with it," he snapped. A knot started to form in his stomach. Dakota pushed away from the desk and started shuffling papers together. Marlene had left them all in neat groups so he could get through them as quickly as possible. In only a few minutes he'd destroyed her hard work. No one would be able to tell where the papers had started with how disorganized he'd made them.

The leather couch squeaked as Eliza adjusted herself. "I wanted to ask you a favor."

Dakota had been absently refilling his stapler now that the papers were beyond saving. Her request startled him and he gripped down on the stapler just right. Pain shot through his thumb and into his palm. "You can't be serious," he scoffed.

"It's just money, barely anything. You can afford to give me what you owe me," Eliza argued.

"Owe you?" Dakota shouted as he turned. A drop of blood slid down his thumb and stained the edge of his sleeve. "Has being pregnant made you lose what was left of your senses? I don't owe you a thing, Liz."

"We both know you hid money from the lawyers," she countered. Her eyes landed on the drop of red. "Oh my gosh, Koty, what did you do?" She pulled herself off the couch and reached for him.

He jerked away from her and clenched his thumb in his other hand. The pressure sent a fresh wave of pain into his hand. The staple was still firmly embedded in his thumb but he couldn't bring himself to remove it on his own. "You are lucky I didn't find a way to take everything from you after you signed it away. Remember, Liz, you agreed to the amount you received from the settlement. There are places you wouldn't have gotten a dime after what you did." He glanced at her swollen belly and took another step back.

"I only did that so you could move on," she murmured.

"I'll move on when you get out. If you sneak your way in here again I'll take out a restraining order against you," Dakota threatened. He waved a hand for Marlene and sat down at his desk. Luckily, not a single drop of blood had hit any of the papers, but he couldn't do anything with them until he had the injury taken care of. "Marlene, could you bring a bandaid?" he asked when she poked her head in.

The door swung in and out of the room, giving everyone outside snippets of the conversation. Eliza took several steps back but made no move to leave the room. "You're really not going to help me out? All of those times you said you'd love me forever and-"

Dakota slapped his uninjured hand against the desk and pointed an accusing finger at her. "I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth. You have no right to stand there and try to guilt me into handing you my money. It took nearly half a year to clear you out of my life and I don't want your hands back in any part of it," he spat out. The chair squeaked when he threw himself into it. He jammed his earphones in and jabbed his finger at his computer to turn it on.

Eliza kept talking, but with music blasting in his ears it only looked like she was trying to chew her way through wet cement. Eventually Marlene returned and he could just barely hear her shout a few times over the guitar solo. The sunset glinted off the glass door as it swung shut again.

Marlene plucked one of the earphones out of his head and tossed it on the desk. It clattered across the papers and rolled to a stop before it fell off the other side of the desk. "Be honest, did you staple your finger so that she would leave?" she asked while pulling the staple out with a pair of tweezers.

"It was an accident. I'd never do something so stupid," he muttered. "Don't look at me like that."

"I didn't say a word," Marlene said.

Music still blared through the abandoned earphone to fill the silence in the room. Dakota flexed his bandaged thumb. "Do you think she'll get home alright?"

"Do you want me to catch her and stuff her in a car?" Marlene offered. Even though her lip curled in disgust, she looked ready to chase down his ex-wife. Her shoulders relaxed when he shook his head. "She looked good, healthy."

Dakota shrugged and fiddled with a spare pen. "Yeah, she does. I'm glad she's doing well. I'm sure he's taking good care of her and the baby." A chime came from the computer and he gratefully turned towards the distraction.