Chương 4
“Not unless she has access to your phone.”
“She doesn’t.”
“You sure?”
He looked toward the sitting room.
“No.”
That answer frightened Nora more than confidence would have.
Lydia returned with a structured leather purse over one shoulder.
She picked up the phone.
Ethan said, “Did you have someone watching Nora’s building?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know about the lock?”
Lydia looked at him with open irritation.
“I heard it from Michael.”
“Michael who?”
She hesitated.
Nora understood immediately.
Ethan did not.
Then he did.
His entire expression altered.
“Michael Dane?”
Lydia said nothing.
Ethan stepped closer.
“Why are you talking to my security contractor about Nora?”
“He works for the family.”
“He works for me.”
“Mercer Protective pays his invoices.”
“I own Mercer Protective.”
“And I administer your personal office.”
“You used my security company to watch her?”
“I asked him to make sure she was safe.”
Nora stared at her.
“Safe from what?”
Lydia’s voice became defensive.
“I didn’t know who might approach you.”
“No one knew I was pregnant.”
“People notice things.”
“What people?”
“People.”
Nora felt an unpleasant laugh pushing against her ribs.
“You mean you.”
Lydia looked away.
Ethan took out his phone again.
This time Nora did not tell him to stop.
He made one call.
“Dane. Effective immediately, nobody from my office is authorized to monitor, contact, follow, photograph, or collect information on Nora Bennett. Nobody. Send me every invoice, instruction, message, and report connected to her from the last six months. Tonight.”
He listened.
His eyes moved to Lydia.
“No. Not through the family office. Directly to me.”
He ended the call.
Lydia’s face was bright with anger now.
“You don’t know what you just did.”
“I ended something that never should have started.”
“You think Dad didn’t have people watching every woman you dated?”
“Dad is dead.”
“And apparently so is your memory.”
Ethan took a slow breath.
Nora shifted the baby to her other arm.
“He needs to eat.”
Ethan looked at her immediately.
“You can use the study.”
“I know where the study is.”
“Nora—”
“Please stop managing every doorway.”
His mouth closed.
Lydia glanced at him.
For one ugly instant, satisfaction appeared in her eyes.
Nora saw that too.
She was too tired to care.
She carried the baby into the study and shut the door behind her.
The room smelled faintly of old paper and cedar polish.
She sat on the leather sofa beneath the window.
Her shoulder ached when she adjusted her shirt, and she had to breathe through the first sharp pull before the baby latched.
Then the house went quiet.
Not truly quiet.
A lawn mower ran somewhere beyond the hedge.
A delivery truck beeped twice on the road.
Pipes ticked inside the wall.
The baby swallowed.
Nora closed her eyes.
For nearly a minute, nobody needed anything from her except a seven-pound human whose demands, however relentless, were at least honest.
She touched the bruised skin beside her nose.
Her fingers came away clean.
She thought about the hospital garage despite trying not to.
Lydia had arrived while Nora was fighting with the car-seat base.
The baby had already been strapped in.
That mattered.
Nora had replayed it repeatedly because that mattered.
The baby had been safe.
Lydia had stood beside the concrete pillar in a camel coat and asked for five minutes.
Nora said no.
Lydia blocked the driver’s door.
Nora said she would call Ethan.
Lydia told her not to be childish.
Nora tried to step around her.
There had been a hand on her forearm.
A jerk.
Nora pulling back.
Then the car against her cheek.
Not a calculated beating.
Not the kind of attack that looked frightening when explained to someone else.
A few seconds.
A stupid burst of physical anger.
Afterward Lydia had looked horrified.
Not at Nora.
At herself.
She had said, “Look what you made me do.”
That was the sentence Nora could not forget.
Someone knocked softly.
She said nothing.
Ethan opened the door two inches.
“Can I come in?”
Nora almost told him no.
Instead she said, “If you don’t talk.”
He entered.
He sat in the armchair across from her and put his phone facedown on one knee.
For a while he did exactly what she asked.
The baby ate.
Nora stared through the window at the strip of yellow-green lawn.
Ethan stared at the floor.
Eventually Nora said, “You asked who I told.”
His head lifted.
“At the hospital.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“I had just had your baby.”
“I know.”
“You walked in after talking to Lydia and asked who I had told.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because there isn’t a version where I explain it and make it better.”
Nora looked down at the baby.
“That’s new.”
“What?”
“You not explaining.”
Ethan nodded.
She watched him rub his thumb along the seam of his trousers.
“You were scared,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
“Of the baby?”
“No.”
“Of your family finding out?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
Nora laughed without humor.
“Okay.”
“I was afraid of losing control of something before I understood it.”
“That sounds like your family.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
He did not defend himself.
That helped less than she expected.
The baby released the nipple and made a small dissatisfied sound.
Nora adjusted him.
Ethan looked away.
“I told Lydia months ago that you were pregnant.”
Nora stopped.
“When?”
“March.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“You told me you hadn’t.”
“I told you I hadn’t told my father.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
His jaw tightened.
“Fine.”
Nora pulled the baby closer.
“Why?”
“Because Lydia found a prenatal vitamin bottle in my apartment.”
Nora stared.
“You’re joking.”
“I wish I were.”
“She goes through your cabinets?”
“She was looking for aspirin.”
“That’s your story?”
“It’s what happened.”
Nora gave him a long look.
May you like
Ethan sighed.
“She saw the bottle. She asked. I lied. She knew I was lying. Two days later, I told her.”
