Just after wrapping up her day at LewisTech, Esther finally made her way home. It was already dark, and all she could think about was rest, and of course, snuggling with her sunflower. She hadn't spoken to Betty all day, and the guilt tugged at her chest.
"You're finally home!" came the excited greeting, followed by Betty's arms wrapping tightly around her. Her communication tablet immediately began machine-typing in a rapid flurry.
"Why did you take so long to return?"
"You promised you'd be home by three. It's eight. I should be in bed by now!"
Esther chuckled softly, touched by the scolding.
"I know, sunflower. I'm sorry," she said, hugging Betty close. "I should've come back earlier."
She really had meant to, but Ibrahim and Alie had kept her longer than expected. They were under pressure to meet a deadline, and Alie, face practically begging, had pleaded for just a few more minutes of her feedback.
"Thank God you're here," Lady Bell's voice called from the stairs as she descended slowly. "She's been asking for you the moment you left."
Truth be told, Lady Bell's head was close to exploding. She hadn't had a moment's peace all day. Her niece had disrupted her nap and her noon sunbath, all in protest of Esther's absence. She knew Esther's influence on Betty was strong—but she hadn't realized just how strong. The girl was completely attached to her governess… and that, frankly, scared her.
Esther was a good girl, no doubt about it, but contracts ended. When the day came for Esther to leave… what then?
"I couldn't get her to sit still," Lady Bell continued, making her way into the living room. "She wouldn't let me turn the tablet off. I have no idea how you do it."
Esther glanced at Betty, who only offered a mischievous grin.
"Did you give Aunt Bell a hard time while I was away?" she asked gently.
"She wouldn't play with me," Betty's machine piped up.
"Oh, I most certainly wouldn't," Lady Bell huffed with playful indignation. "I'm too old to be jumping around like a grasshopper. My knees would give out before the second hop."
"Told you." The tablet delivered Betty's smug little clapback, prompting a burst of laughter from Esther.
But the moment was quickly broken.
"Miss Cole."
The voice that cut through the room froze Esther in place. She didn't need to look up, she knew exactly who it was.
Daniel.
He stood at the top of the stairs in perfect posture, one hand tucked neatly in his pocket.
"When you're done putting Betty to bed, meet me in my study," he said, before turning and disappearing down the hall.
"Yes, sir," Esther replied, her breath finally releasing once he was out of sight.
"He's early," she whispered to Betty with a nervous laugh.
"You okay?" Betty's machine asked, concern flashing in her wide eyes.
"I'm fine," Esther reassured with a smile, brushing a hand gently over the girl's curls. "Let's get you ready for bed. Mr. Ice King wants to see me."
Betty giggled, the machine barely keeping up with her amusement.
As they made their way upstairs, Lady Bell called out behind them. "Esther, don't forget to eat before meeting the Ice King. Cold conversations are better with a warm stomach!"
Moments after freshening up and tucking Betty to bed, she went down to have her meal. Lady Bell was right, if she was to face ice then she needed warmth which the chicken and jollof rice provided.
She headed for the study after a wash of the plate she ate on.
The light from the floor lamp cast a warm amber glow across the study, its rays bouncing off the polished wood shelves lined with books and framed photos. A low jazz instrumental hummed from the speakers, soothing and unobtrusive.
Esther knocked once before entering.
"You asked to see me, sir?" she said, stepping in with careful poise.
Daniel looked up from behind his desk. The suit jacket was gone, sleeves rolled up, and his tie loosened, a rare sight of him unarmored. He nodded toward the chair across from him.
"Please, sit."
She obeyed, her hands resting on her lap as she offered a polite smile.
"I wanted to ask how your first day went," Daniel said, his voice calm and steady. "You were gone longer than expected."
"It went well, thank you. A bit longer than planned," she admitted. "The team, Mr. Ibrahim and Alie, they had a lot of questions. They were eager for feedback, and I didn't want to disappoint."
He watched her as she spoke, not just listening to her words, but noticing the faint arch of her brows when she was being thoughtful, the slight dimple that appeared when she smiled, and the way her curls brushed her cheeks when she tilted her head. She wasn't dressed to dazzle, and yet, something about her held his attention in a quiet, unassuming way.
Her voice pulled him back in. "It's a fascinating project. I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I can see the impact it could make—especially for someone like Betty."
At the mention of his daughter, something softened in his gaze. "I saw how she clung to you when you returned. She doesn't connect easily."
"I'm honored that she lets me in," Esther replied sincerely. "She's smart, witty, and she has so much to say."
Daniel leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "And you listen. That's a rare trait."
There was a pause. Comfortable, yet charged with something unspoken.
"Thank you for today," he added after a moment. "You handled it well."
Esther's smile widened, modest but warm. "Thank you, Mr. Lewis."
"Daniel," he corrected, the word slipping out before he considered it. Then, more measured, "At least, in private settings like this. You've earned that."
"Alright… Daniel," she said, testing the name with a small nod.
Another pause, and then he stood.
"You should rest. It's been a long day."
She got up as well. "Goodnight Mr lew.." hee words are froze by the reminder look Daniel gave her "Goodnight Daniel."
As she turned to leave, he found himself watching her again. The door closed behind her with a gentle click, but the space felt less quiet than before, like something had shifted ever so slightly.
Daniel exhaled and returned to his desk, but he didn't resume typing. Instead, he stared at the screen, his thoughts elsewhere, quietly wrestling with the unfamiliar warmth creeping in around the edges.
Esther took a quiet walk through the hallway, her mind still lingering on Mr. Lewis's surprisingly warm words, and even more surprising, his permission to call him by his first name.
That's… unbelievable, she whispered inwardly, a small smile tugging at her lips as she turned the knob of her bedroom door.
"You're back," said a voice.
Cold prickled her skin as she jolted, her hand flying to her chest.
"Christ, Sunflower! What are you doing in my room?" she asked breathlessly, stepping inside to find Betty curled up comfortably on her bed.
"Didn't I put you to sleep already?"
"You did, but I'm not sleepy, so I came to your room," Betty's tablet replied. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"
"Of course you can," Esther said, settling beside her. Just as she pulled Betty in for a hug, her eyes caught sight of the painting book and water markers sprawled beside them.
"What's this?" she asked, feigning innocence.
"I thought we could paint before bed."
Esther gave a helpless smile. Looks like it's going to be a long night.
"So…" Betty began again, "how was your chat with Dad?"
Esther's eyes widened in a slow blink. She cleared her throat. "It went well. Strangely enough," she added in a whisper.
"Did Mr. Ice King smile at you today?" Betty typed next.
"What?" Esther blinked at her.
"You're blushing. That only happens when he talks to you."
"I am not blushing," Esther scoffed, lightly flustered. "It's just… I ran up the stairs. That's it. Definitely not because of Mr. Ice King's frosty charm. What am I even saying?"
At that moment, the door creaked open.
"I see you two aren't asleep yet," Lady Bell said, stepping in. "Mind if I join you?"
She didn't wait for an answer as she settled comfortably on the carpet beside them.
"Well, I guess my room's officially been hijacked," Esther muttered, though a playful smile danced on her lips.
"Esther blushed because Mr. Ice King smiled at her," Betty typed with a mischievous glint.
Esther gasped. "Betty!"
Lady Bell let out a chuckle. "He is oddly handsome for someone so uptight. You have to admit that much."
"Not you too, Aunt," Esther groaned.
"I didn't say anything. Betty made me do it," Lady Bell teased, laughter in her voice.
"I'm being framed," Betty typed, dramatically shaking her head in mock disbelief.
"You two are impossible. I might have to evict you both from my room," Esther replied, laughing.
"I give up. No more teasing," Betty wrote. "I can't afford to get kicked out of my newly rented room."
Her unexpected humor sent both Esther and Lady Bell into another round of laughter. For a moment, all was light and easy.
"That's enough now. Time for bed. You've got school tomorrow," Esther said, lifting Betty gently and tucking her in. "No cheating, eyes closed."
As she coaxed the girl to sleep, Lady Bell leaned against the wall with a reflective sigh.
"You've changed a lot around here," she said quietly. "Betty's happy. She's healing. And Daniel… he's softening."
Esther glanced back. "I doubt I had anything to do with that. Mr. Lewis has his own thoughts, ones that aren't easily influenced."
Lady Bell tilted her head. "He used to walk in without a word. Now he waits for you to speak first."
Esther blinked. "Who?"
"No one," Lady Bell said, rising with a knowing hum. "I'm old. I just… notice things."
And before Esther could respond, Lady Bell gave her a warm look and stepped out.
"Good night, child. Rest well."
As the door clicked shut, Lady Bell smiled to herself. If what she was sensing was even half true, she wouldn't mind. After all, her only agenda was bringing light back into this house, for Daniel, for Betty. And if a girl like Esther was the spark, then she'd have both hands behind her, pushing her all the way.
Weeks passed in a steady rhythm.
Esther's days fell into a quiet pattern, wake up, get dressed, head to the NeuroSpeech subdivision, and return late in the evening to the Lewis mansion, where a very unimpressed Betty would be waiting to scold her for being "late again."
It became their unspoken ritual.
And just like every other day in those passing weeks, she was at work once more.
The development wing of the NeuroSpeech subdivision buzzed with the familiar low hum of machines and soft mechanical whirs. The scent of soldered wires and coffee lingered in the air. Screens glowed, code scrolled, and developers moved with quiet focus.
Esther sat at a corner desk near the test console, sleeves rolled to her elbows, eyes narrowed in focus. On the screen, a prototype interface displayed a flickering set of options for speech output based on real-time neural input.
"You see that pause right there?" she pointed at a blip on the emotion-to-speech graph.
Alie, hunched beside her with his tablet, followed her finger. "Yeah, that's when the subject tried to say 'No' but the system gave us a confused 'Okay.' It's been doing that."
Esther frowned slightly, thoughtful. "That's not just signal interference. Look at the neural signature, it spiked in the emotional recognition band. I think that was frustration, not confusion."
Across from them, Ibrahim folded his arms. "We calibrated that range last month. Are you suggesting the AI still misreads emotional intention?"
Esther gave him a calm but firm nod. "I'm saying it doesn't understand emotional contradiction. You're training it to read emotions in isolation, happy, angry, sad. But in real humans, especially children like Betty, two emotions often fire at once."
She leaned in, adjusting the chart overlay. "Here, let's layer the secondary emotional track."
Alie tapped into the code. The waveform refreshed. This time, a subtle double-peak became visible. Frustration mixed with hesitation.
Ibrahim's brows lifted.
"That's… guilt," he muttered, almost to himself. "A guilty refusal."
Esther smiled gently. "Exactly. She wanted to say no but felt she shouldn't. The system interpreted her hesitation as compliance, not emotional conflict."
There was a long pause. Ibrahim exchanged a glance with Alie, one of those rare, wordless acknowledgments between developers who'd just been shown something they hadn't accounted for.
"We need to restructure the sentiment matrix," Alie murmured.
Esther stood. "The AI needs to learn that humans aren't binary. We don't just feel one thing at a time. Add that variability in, and it'll be much closer to truly understanding non-verbal speech."
A voice came from the back.
"That's quite an insight."
All three turned .
Daniel stood at the rear glass partition, arms loosely folded, a soft shadow in his office doorway. He had been standing there for a while, observing, silent.
Esther straightened, unsure if he was impressed or displeased. Daniel's gaze flicked from her to the monitor, then to Ibrahim and Alie.
"Do you think that adjustment is feasible?" he asked Ibrahim.
The developer gave a nod. "It'll mean some new calibration, and a lot more emotional mapping data… but yes. Very feasible."
Alie grinned faintly. "And very necessary."
Daniel's expression softened as his eyes returned to Esther. There was the briefest flicker of something like gratitude.
"Keep at it," he said simply, before retreating back into his office.
Esther exhaled softly, then turned back to Ibrahim and Alie. Their energy had shifted, respect now lived in their expressions. Her input wasn't a novelty. It was vital.
They continued, and minutes later Daniel was out of his office. From the far side of the glass-walled observation office, he stood with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, his attention focused on the floor below. Thomas stood beside him, tablet in hand, listing updates on project timelines, but Daniel's eyes were no longer on the data.
They were on her.
Esther stood just past one of the main testing stations, her sleeves rolled up and her curls pulled into a loose puff. She was laughing, brightly, freely, with Alie, who leaned slightly closer as he explained something on the holographic interface.
It wasn't the conversation itself that held Daniel's gaze, it was how she tilted her head when she laughed. How her hand lightly brushed Alie's as she reached for the stylus. How at ease she looked. How familiar.
Too familiar.
He hadn't realized he was staring until Thomas paused mid-sentence.
"Sir?" Thomas followed his gaze, and as soon as his eyes landed on Esther and Alie, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
Daniel's jaw shifted ever so slightly. "Tell Miss Cole I want to see her in my office."
Thomas raised a brow but quickly concealed it with a nod. "Right away."
Without another word, Daniel turned from the glass and strode out of the room, his long strides sharp, his coffee forgotten on the sill. Thomas watched him go, then looked back toward Esther and Alie, shaking his head lightly in amusement.
"Poor Alie," he muttered under his breath. "Has no idea he's just been marked competition."