Chương 1
""My first clear memory of Elias Vance was not his face but the sound of him turning the deadbolt on his penthouse door.
“He’s coming because he just found out who rescued you,” Elias said.
The words made something inside me retreat to the same cold place where I had hidden during the worst nights of my marriage.
I pulled the blanket higher even though the room was warm.
“Daniel doesn’t care who you are.”
Elias glanced down at the phone his security chief had handed him.
“No, Ava.”
“He cares very much.”
A thin cry came through the adjoining doorway, followed immediately by another, louder and angrier.
My body moved before my mind did.
Pain tore through my abdomen when I swung my feet toward the floor.
Elias crossed the room and caught my elbow.
“Don’t.”
“Let go of me.”
“Your doctor said you’re not supposed to stand without help.”
“They’re crying.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know what that means.”
His hand disappeared from my arm at once.
For the first time, the expression on his face shifted from controlled concern to something almost embarrassed.
“No,” he said.
“I suppose I don’t.”
The honesty stopped me more effectively than force would have.
A woman in navy scrubs appeared carrying one of my daughters, while a second nurse followed with the other.
I had met neither of them consciously, although apparently they had spent three days keeping my children alive.
The smaller baby was furious, fists clenched beside her red cheeks.
Her sister merely whimpered as if crying required energy she preferred to conserve.
“We were bringing them in,” the first nurse said.
She looked from Elias to me and apparently decided some argument had already occurred.
“Good timing, I guess.”
I held out my arms.
The nurses hesitated.
That hesitation hurt more than it should have.
“They’re mine.”
“Of course they are,” the older nurse said gently.
She brought the smaller twin to me.
“We just need you supported.”
Nobody had supported me while I held my daughters before.
The thought arrived without warning and nearly undid me.
I lowered my face to the baby's forehead instead.
She smelled faintly of milk and something medicinal.
My husband had refused to name them.
Girls did not need names yet, Daniel had said, because there was no point becoming sentimental until he decided what to do with us.
I had secretly called them Lily and Grace during the pregnancy.
I had never told anyone.
“What are their names?” Elias asked.
My arms tightened.
I stared at him, suddenly suspicious that even names could be taken.
He seemed to notice.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Lily.”
The smaller baby made a dissatisfied noise against my chest.
“And Grace.”
Elias repeated neither name.
He simply nodded.
His security chief remained near the entrance with the phone in his hand.
He was a broad man in his forties named Marcus Hale, and unlike Elias, he had not learned how to make expensive clothing look effortless.
His suit jacket pulled awkwardly around his shoulders.
“Sir.”
Elias turned.
Marcus tilted the phone slightly.
Whatever was on the screen required privacy.
Elias looked at me.
I hated that look.
Men had been deciding what I was strong enough to hear for years.
“Say it here.”
Marcus did not move.
“Mrs. Miller—”
“Ava.”
“All right.”
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the phone.
“Your husband contacted the Vance Group executive office at six fourteen this morning.”
I looked toward the windows.
The city beyond them was turning gray with dawn.
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether Mr. Vance had you.”
The baby in my arms stopped crying.
The silence she left behind seemed enormous.
“How would he know?”
Marcus and Elias exchanged a look.
That frightened me more than the answer.
“There was a photograph,” Marcus said.
“What photograph?”
“Someone took one when we stopped beneath the overpass.”
My stomach tightened.
“A passerby?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Elias stepped closer to Marcus.
“Show her.”
Marcus unlocked the phone and handed it to me.
The photograph was grainy and taken from a distance.
An SUV occupied most of the frame, its rear door open beneath the dirty yellow light of the overpass.
Elias stood beside it holding something against his bare chest beneath his unbuttoned shirt.
My daughters.
I was visible only partly, limp in another guard’s arms while Elias repositioned the babies before taking me himself.
The image had been posted to an anonymous neighborhood account with a caption asking why billionaire Elias Vance was carrying newborns beneath the West Side Highway before dawn.
There were thousands of comments.
I stopped reading after the first dozen.
Some people thought Elias had discovered abandoned babies.
Someone suggested drugs.
Someone else called me a prostitute.
One comment said the mother was probably trying to extort him.
My finger remained on that sentence.
Three days earlier I had been nearly dead.
Now strangers had opinions about my character.
“Take it away.”
Marcus did.
“I’m working on getting identifying reposts removed where possible,” he said.
“Don’t.”
Elias looked at me.
I swallowed.
“If Daniel thinks hiding the picture matters, he’ll know it matters to me.”
Neither man answered.
I looked down at Lily.
“Tell me what he said when he called.”
Marcus hesitated again.
This time Elias did not rescue him from the decision.
“He said you were mentally unstable.”
A familiar numbness spread through my fingers.
“He said you left voluntarily after an argument and took the babies without adequate clothing.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
My voice came out sharper than I intended.
“You found me afterward.”
“You weren’t there.”
Marcus gave a small nod.
“You’re right.”
That answer unsettled me.
Daniel never conceded anything, not even the temperature of a room.
I had forgotten conversations could contain retreat.
“What else?”
“He claimed he was concerned for his daughters.”
I laughed.
It was an ugly sound.
May you like
Grace startled in the nurse’s arms.
I covered my mouth.
