Chương 2
I stepped back.
"No."
My mother watched me carefully.
"Bennett."
"No."
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
"My father died a respected man."
Clara lowered her eyes.
"I didn't come here to destroy his memory."
"Then why are you here?"
Her answer was barely audible.
"Because your mother asked me to come."
I turned toward Eleanor.
"You knew?"
She nodded.
"I knew who she was before I hired her."
The betrayal felt strange because it came from someone I loved.
I was not angry at Clara anymore.
I was angry that my mother had kept a secret in the one place where I believed I had complete control.
"How long?"
"Since before you met her."
I stared.
That was impossible.
I searched my memory.
Clara had been in the house almost a year.
Quiet.
Polite.
Forgettable.
That was what bothered me most.
She had been standing ten feet away from me for months, and I had never once wondered who she was.
I had only noticed that the floors were clean.
The next morning, I did something I had not done in years.
I canceled every meeting on my calendar.
My assistant protested for six minutes before realizing I was not negotiating.
Then I went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table.
Not the dining room.
Not my office.
The kitchen.
The place where my mother used to make pancakes when I was a child before wealth changed the size of everything around us.
Clara was there making tea.
She looked uncomfortable.
Good.
I was uncomfortable too.
"Tell me about your mother," I said.
She stopped moving.
"My mother?"
"Yes."
She studied my face as if deciding whether I was asking a question or preparing an attack.
Finally, she sat across from me.
"Her name was Rachel."
The name meant nothing.
That bothered me.
"My father knew her how?"
Clara wrapped both hands around her cup.
"Your father would probably say he helped her."
"And what would you say?"
She looked toward the window.
"I would say he made a promise he never kept."
The answer stayed between us.
Not dramatic.
Not loud.
Just heavy.
"What promise?"
Clara took a breath.
"My mother was twenty-six when she met him."
I waited.
"She was working two jobs and raising me alone."
She looked down at the tea.
"Your father offered her a better position."
"At his company?"
"No."
Her voice became quieter.
"In his home."
A cold feeling moved through me.
I hated the assumptions forming in my mind.
I hated that they felt possible.
"My father had secrets," Clara said.
"Everyone has secrets."
"Some secrets hurt people who never agreed to carry them."
I looked at her.
"What happened to your mother?"
Clara did not answer immediately.
A car passed outside the gates.
Somewhere upstairs, a machine beeped from my mother's bedroom.
Normal sounds.
A normal afternoon.
Except nothing about my life felt normal anymore.
"She died believing your father would finally tell you the truth."
I looked away.
Because the truth was becoming something I no longer wanted.
The truth was becoming something I no longer wanted.
But wanting it had never been the part I was good at.
I had spent my entire adult life collecting facts before making decisions.
Numbers.
Contracts.
Background checks.
Financial reports.
I trusted documents because people changed depending on what they needed.
Yet now I was sitting across from a woman I barely knew, listening to a story that involved the one person I had spent years defending.
"My father didn't just know your mother," I said.
Clara looked at me.
"No."
The answer was quiet.
I hated how easily she said it.
"What was their relationship?"
Her fingers moved around the cup.
"They cared about each other."
I looked away.
The words were too soft.
Too careful.
"Cared about each other?"
"Yes."
"That is not an answer."
"No," she said.
"It isn't."
For a moment, I saw something in her face that reminded me of my mother.
Not the expression.
The exhaustion.
The kind people carried when they had been holding something alone for too long.
"My mother never wanted money from him," Clara said.
"Then what did she want?"
"She wanted him to admit she existed."
The kitchen became painfully quiet.
I thought about my father.
The man whose portrait hung above the fireplace.
The man whose name was on buildings, scholarships, and company documents.
The man everyone described as disciplined, generous, and loyal.
I had spent years protecting that image.
Maybe because protecting him was easier than admitting I never really knew him.
"Why did my mother bring you here?"
Clara hesitated.
"Because she wanted to fix something before she died."
"Fix what?"
She looked directly at me.
"The damage your father left behind."
I stood up too quickly.
The chair scraped against the floor.
Clara flinched.
That bothered me more than her words.
She was not afraid of my anger because of who I was.
She was afraid because anger had probably been the reaction she expected from powerful men her entire life.
"I need the truth," I said.
"I know."
"Not pieces."
"I know."
"Not things that make me feel better."
Her expression softened slightly.
"Good."
I stared at her.
"Good?"
"Because the truth is not going to make you feel better."
That was the first thing she said that sounded like she was not trying to protect me.
I walked away from the table.
The kitchen suddenly felt too small.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
Three missed calls from my chief operating officer.
Two messages from my attorney.
A reminder about a charity dinner I was supposed to attend that evening.
My normal life was still waiting.
That almost felt insulting.
I picked up the phone and turned it off.
Clara watched me.
"You don't have to do that."
"Do what?"
"Pretend everything else disappeared."
I looked at her.
"You think I pretend?"
May you like
"I think you survive."
The sentence caught me off guard.
