Chương 10
Rachel refused.
He requested again.
She refused again.
The third request included a specific reason.
He wanted to discuss the night he opened the real paternity report.
Rachel agreed.
They met in a conference room at a neutral family-services office.
Marcus was not there.
Neither was Vivian.
Grant sat across from Rachel.
The room had a fake plant and a box of tissues placed so deliberately between them that Rachel almost moved it out of spite.
Grant looked thinner.
His hair was shorter.
The wedding ring was gone.
Rachel had removed hers in September after realizing she was washing her hands at the hospital and automatically checking that it was still there.
For days afterward, she kept feeling a phantom pressure around her finger.
Grant noticed her bare hand.
Rachel noticed him noticing.
Neither mentioned it.
“You wanted to talk.”
Grant nodded.
“I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I’m asking you to forgive me.”
“Then don’t ask.”
“I’m not.”
He rubbed his palms against his jeans.
“I opened the result Friday.”
“I know.”
“I called my mother.”
“I know.”
“I told her Sophie was mine.”
Rachel’s mouth tightened.
“You needed a laboratory to tell you that?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do any of it?”
Grant stared at the table.
“When Mom showed me the first report, I knew something was off.”
“Your email proves that.”
“I still wanted it to be true.”
Rachel went completely still.
Grant looked up.
Not at her eyes.
At her shoulder.
“What?”
“I wanted the negative test to be true.”
For months Rachel had imagined lies.
She had prepared herself for excuses.
That sentence entered somewhere none of them had reached.
“Why?”
Grant swallowed.
“Because if Sophie wasn’t mine, then everything I’d been feeling had a reason.”
“What had you been feeling?”
“Trapped.”
Rachel laughed once.
It came out ugly.
“You were trapped?”
“Yes.”
“In the six-bedroom house?”
“Rachel.”
“With the nanny your mother paid for even though I asked her not to?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
Grant’s face reddened.
“I mean I didn’t know how to be who everyone needed.”
“That is being an adult.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
He looked at her then.
“I was angry all the time.”
“At me?”
“At everybody.”
“Were you angry at Sophie?”
His silence lasted too long.
Rachel felt cold.
Grant shook his head.
“Not at her.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I resented what having a child did to my life.”
Rachel pushed her chair back an inch.
Grant continued quickly.
“I loved her. I love her. Those things existed together and I hated myself for it.”
Rachel looked toward the fake plant.
One leaf had a layer of dust.
“I thought if the test was negative, I could leave without being the man who walked out on his daughter.”
The room became very quiet.
Rachel saw the yacht differently.
Not completely.
A new angle.
The fake test had offered Grant innocence.
Not proof of betrayal.
Permission.
Vivian understood her son well enough to know what kind of lie he wanted.
“And when the real test came?”
Grant rubbed his face.
“I sat outside for twenty minutes.”
“You came inside after ten.”
“Felt like twenty.”
Rachel almost smiled at the correction.
Almost.
“I knew it was over.”
“What was over?”
“The story I’d been telling myself.”
“So the next morning you locked her in a compartment.”
Grant’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She was crying. Mom was telling me you were going to humiliate us in front of everyone. You were asking her about the fake report. Sophie kept saying she wanted to go home. I wanted everyone to stop.”
“So you stopped the smallest person.”
Grant closed his eyes.
Rachel waited.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not the legal truth.
Not the scientific truth.
The human truth.
Grant had not put Sophie inside because he believed she was not his.
He put her there because she was six.
Because she could be moved.
Because Rachel would fight back.
Vivian would fight back.
Guests would ask questions.
Sophie was the only person on the yacht Grant believed he could control completely.
The realization made Rachel nauseated.
Grant whispered, “I hate myself for that.”
Rachel reached for the tissue box.
Grant looked surprised.
She pushed it toward him.
He took one.
“I don’t hate you,” she said.
His face crumpled.
“Please don’t say that like it’s kindness.”
“It isn’t.”
He wiped his eyes.
“I wish I hated you. It would be easier.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t get to know things about me right now.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
The old Grant would have defended himself.
The new response irritated her too.
“You agreeing with everything isn’t better.”
A strange sound escaped him.
Half laugh.
Half breath.
“I don’t know how to talk to you.”
“Good.”
He looked at her.
“Good?”
“Maybe stop trying to get the conversation right.”
For several seconds they sat without speaking.
Grant folded the tissue into smaller and smaller squares.
Rachel watched because it was easier than looking at his face.
Finally he said, “My mother offered you money.”
Rachel looked up.
“How do you know?”
“She told me.”
The offer had arrived through Vivian’s civil attorney two weeks earlier.
A generous financial settlement.
More than Rachel’s attorney expected her to receive quickly if every dispute continued.
The conditions included broad confidentiality provisions.
No public statements.
No sharing internal Mercer family communications beyond legally required proceedings.
Mutual non-disparagement.
Rachel’s attorney had not told her to reject it.
In fact, the attorney had explained exactly why accepting might create stability for Sophie.
Rachel had not decided.
Grant said, “Don’t take it.”
Rachel stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“My mother wants the story buried.”
“You don’t get an opinion about my settlement.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you giving one?”
“Because there’s something you don’t have.”
Rachel’s pulse quickened.
May you like
Grant reached into the folder beside his chair.
Rachel immediately stood.
