Chương 2
Fear deserved privacy sometimes.
The smallest girl had begun twisting the fabric of Alexander’s trousers between her fingers.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Lily.”
She pointed carefully to each sister.
“That’s Emma, Sophie, and Grace.”
The oldest, Emma, whispered, “You’re not supposed to introduce all of us to strangers either.”
Lily looked offended.
“He’s going to be our dad.”
“For five minutes,” Sophie muttered.
Alexander nearly laughed.
The impulse irritated him.
He had come to the café because his driver, Marcus, had suggested that drinking tea in the office every morning made him look like “a Victorian undertaker with Wi-Fi.”
Alexander had told Marcus to mind his own business.
Marcus had replied that minding Alexander’s business was literally his job.
So Alexander had walked two blocks alone, partly to prove that nobody managed him and partly because the office coffee had started tasting like burned pennies.
Now four children were hiding beneath his table and requesting temporary paternity.
Across the room, Claire finally spotted a cream ribbon.
Her eyes moved from the ribbon to Alexander.
Recognition struck instantly.
Her face lost color.
Alexander was used to that.
People who knew his name generally reacted in one of three ways.
They stared.
They pretended not to stare.
Or they found a reason to leave.
Claire did none of those things.
She moved.
“Girls.”
Her voice carried across the café with enough force to stop two nearby conversations.
Mercer turned.
The broad man turned with him.
Alexander did not.
Claire crossed the room quickly, trying to maintain the appearance of a mother retrieving mischievous children while every muscle in her face betrayed panic.
“I’m so sorry,” she said when she reached the table.
“Girls, come out right now.”
Nobody moved.
Claire crouched.
“Emma.”
Emma crawled closer to Alexander’s chair.
Claire closed her eyes for half a second.
“Please.”
Mercer approached behind her.
“You see what I mean?”
His tone was mild.
“The girls are acting out because they don’t have enough structure.”
Claire stood so quickly that her shoulder nearly struck the table.
“This is not the time, Daniel.”
“It seems like exactly the time.”
Alexander looked at him.
Mercer noticed.
His confidence faltered only briefly.
“Mr. Hayes.”
Alexander said nothing.
Recognition traveled across Mercer’s face with a different flavor than Claire’s.
Not fear exactly.
Calculation.
That interested Alexander.
Claire gathered herself.
“I apologize for disturbing you.”
“Your daughters haven’t disturbed me.”
“They shouldn’t be under your table.”
“On that point we agree.”
Lily squeezed his leg harder.
Mercer gave a small laugh.
“Children.”
Nobody joined him.
He placed a hand near Claire’s elbow.
She pulled away before he touched her.
The oldest girl noticed.
So did Alexander.
Mercer noticed Alexander noticing.
His smile tightened.
“We were having a private family conversation.”
Claire turned toward him.
“You are not family.”
“Claire.”
“Don’t.”
The word came out sharper than she intended.
A woman at the neighboring table looked over, then immediately returned to her phone.
Mercer lowered his voice.
“This is what I’m talking about.”
Claire’s cheeks colored.
“You followed me here.”
“I came because you stopped answering.”
“That is usually a message.”
“You’ve been emotional.”
Alexander watched Claire’s fingers close around the portfolio strap.
There it was.
A tiny sentence designed to move an argument away from what Mercer had done and toward whether Claire was stable enough to object.
Alexander had used similar tactics himself.
The recognition did not make him proud.
Mercer glanced at the children.
“Come on, girls.”
Four bodies pressed closer beneath Alexander’s table.
Lily whispered, “Dad.”
Silence settled around them.
Claire’s eyes widened.
Mercer blinked.
Alexander looked down at the child.
She stared back with absolute faith in a lie she had invented less than ten minutes earlier.
“Dad,” she repeated, louder this time.
Emma’s face went pale.
Sophie covered her mouth.
Grace looked as if she might either cry or laugh.
Mercer stared at Alexander.
“What did she call you?”
Alexander should have ended it there.
He should have told the truth, returned the children to their mother, finished his tea, and left other people’s disasters to the people foolish enough to create them.
He had a meeting in forty minutes involving three warehouses, an alderman’s nephew, and a missing shipment worth enough money to get somebody killed.
He had spent twenty years surviving because he understood boundaries.
The girls were not his responsibility.
Claire Bennett was not his responsibility.
Daniel Mercer was certainly not his responsibility.
Then Mercer looked at Claire and smiled.
It was a private little smile, almost sympathetic.
“You’ve been coaching them now?”
Claire flinched.
That decided it.
Alexander leaned back in his chair.
“The girls are with me.”
Claire stared at him.
Mercer’s smile vanished.
Alexander reached beneath the table without looking and offered his hand.
Lily took it first.
One by one, four girls crawled out and arranged themselves around him.
Emma stood nearest his right shoulder, clearly embarrassed by the entire plan now that adults were looking at her.
Sophie crossed her arms.
Grace held Emma’s sleeve.
Lily climbed onto the empty chair beside Alexander as though she had been sitting there all morning.
Claire seemed unable to decide whether rescue by Alexander Hayes was better or worse than whatever she had been trying to escape.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Alexander met her eyes.
“Following your daughters’ instructions.”
“Mr. Hayes, I don’t know what they told you, but—”
“They told me enough to become concerned.”
Mercer stepped closer.
“This is absurd.”
Alexander looked at him.
Mercer stopped.
The café had become noticeably quieter now.
Not silent, because Chicago had trained its citizens to mind their own business, but quiet enough that spoons seemed louder than before.
Mercer adjusted his coat.
“I don’t believe you understand the situation.”
“That would make two of us.”
“This is between Claire and me.”
Claire laughed once.
It was not amusement.
“There is no ‘you and me.’”
Mercer’s mouth hardened.
May you like
Alexander saw it then, the flash beneath the reasonable expression.
Not heartbreak.
