Chương 3
She blinked.
"Yes."
"Four."
Theo said, "Five."
Adrian looked at him.
"You want one?"
Theo shook his head. "Claire hasn't eaten."
Claire stared at him.
The boy shrugged.
"You don't eat when you're nervous."
Something crossed Claire's face that Adrian did not want to see.
"Five," he said.
The cook nodded.
"What cheese?"
Four voices answered at once.
"American."
Adrian pulled out a chair.
One of the boys sat.
The others chose seats beside him in an exact row, as if invisible elastic held them together.
Adrian sat across from them.
Claire remained standing.
"Sit down," he said.
She did.
Nina took the end chair.
For thirty seconds nobody spoke.
The cook buttered bread.
Fabric moved faintly in the corridor. Somewhere farther away, the ballroom microphone crackled as somebody announced that Mr. Cole had been called away for an urgent family matter.
Adrian's phone filled with messages.
He turned it face down.
"Do you boys live with Claire now?"
Jack shook his head.
Nina answered. "Temporarily with me."
"Legally?"
Claire said, "Rebecca named Nina as temporary guardian in her will."
Nina corrected her.
"Preferred guardian. It's not automatic."
Adrian looked at her.
She returned the look without the slightest interest in his last name.
"I filed an emergency petition," she said. "The court granted me temporary authority while things get sorted out. Claire stays at the house most nights."
"Why not Claire?"
Nina looked toward the children.
Claire said, "Later."
Adrian almost pushed.
Then Jack asked, "Are you really rich?"
Owen whispered, "Jack."
"What?"
"You can't ask."
"Everybody at school says he's a billionaire."
Adrian rubbed his jaw.
"People at your school know who I am?"
Theo said, "We looked you up."
Claire closed her eyes.
Adrian asked, "When?"
"Tuesday."
"What did you find?"
Miles said, "A picture of you yelling at basketball."
Adrian frowned.
"I don't yell at basketball."
"You were."
"That was a playoff game."
Theo looked at his brothers. "That's still basketball."
The cook placed sandwiches in front of them.
Jack immediately pulled his apart to inspect the cheese.
Adrian watched four children begin eating.
They did not look mysterious while chewing.
They looked six.
That was worse.
Owen had a small scar under his chin. Miles did not like crust. Theo ate slowly. Jack drank water too quickly and coughed into his sleeve.
Adrian knew none of this.
He looked at Claire.
"Why did Rebecca have DNA tests?"
Claire folded her hands in her lap.
"Because after Daniel died, she changed her estate plan. The attorney asked questions about biological parentage. Rebecca wouldn't lie to him."
"But she'd lie to me."
Theo stopped chewing.
Adrian immediately regretted saying it.
Claire's voice hardened for the first time.
"Not in front of them."
He looked at her.
A strange thing happened.
Part of him wanted to say she did not get to set rules.
Another part knew she was right.
He stood.
"Martin will take you to the library when they're done."
Nina said, "I'm going with the boys."
"Good."
Claire rose.
Adrian pointed toward the corridor.
"You come with me."
She followed him to his study.
The room overlooked the west lawn. Through the windows he could see taillights moving slowly down the drive as guests departed under new security procedures.
His father was not among them.
Graham Cole was waiting beside the fireplace.
Martin stood near the door.
Adrian stopped.
He had not told Martin to bring Graham upstairs.
Martin said quietly, "Your father insisted."
Graham looked from Adrian to Claire.
He was sixty-eight, silver-haired, broad-shouldered, wearing a dinner jacket cut by the same London tailor he had used for thirty years. He looked irritated rather than worried.
Then he saw the hospital envelope in Adrian's hand.
The irritation disappeared.
That was the first thing Adrian needed.
Not proof.
But something close to recognition.
Graham's eyes moved to Claire.
"What did you do?"
Claire made a small sound.
Adrian's body went cold.
He shut the study door.
"You know the envelope."
Graham recovered quickly.
"I know Claire."
"That's not what I said."
His father removed his glasses, cleaned one lens with a folded handkerchief, and put them back on.
An old habit.
Delay disguised as precision.
"What is this about?"
Adrian placed the four DNA reports on the desk.
Graham did not touch them.
Adrian said, "Four boys are eating grilled cheese in my kitchen."
Nothing.
"They're six."
Still nothing.
"They're mine."
Graham looked at Claire again.
Adrian had spent most of his adult life watching men become smaller under that look.
Claire did not.
Not tonight.
She said, "Rebecca is dead."
Graham's jaw tightened.
It was almost invisible.
Adrian saw it.
"How much did you pay her?"
His father's attention snapped back to him.
"Be very careful."
"How much?"
"I have no idea what Claire has told you."
"She hasn't told me anything yet."
Adrian stepped closer.
"That's what makes your face so interesting."
Graham's voice dropped.
"Don't perform for me."
Adrian laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"Four children just showed me my name on the hospital bands you told me were buried with them, and you're worried I'm performing?"
Graham said nothing.
Claire whispered, "He doesn't know the rest."
Graham turned on her.
"Then perhaps you should stop."
Adrian moved between them.
It was the second time that night he had done that without thinking.
The first time had been for the boys.
This time he did it because his father's tone dragged him backward six years.
Claire in a hospital bed.
Claire crying because her pregnancy had become medically frightening.
Graham standing by the window telling Adrian that panic was not a plan.
Adrian leaving for Singapore forty-eight hours later because a merger was collapsing and his father had asked him whether he intended to destroy eight thousand jobs over something he could not medically control.
He had gone.
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That fact had remained ugly enough that Adrian had learned to walk around it.
Claire had stopped answering his calls three weeks later.
