Chương 2
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“The people outside already know your face.”
“That happened because I came here.”
“That happened because someone wanted this meeting seen.”
“Which is another reason not to let you decide where my children sleep.”
A muscle moved in his jaw. He glanced toward Noah, Ivy, and Owen, and whatever response he had prepared disappeared.
“All right,” he said. “You decide. But take a car that can’t be followed.”
Maya almost laughed. It came out as a breath with no humor in it.
“You say things like that as if they’re normal.”
“They are normal for me.”
“They’re not going to be normal for them.”
Sebastian looked at the children again.
“No,” he said. “They aren’t.”
On the balcony, Augustus rested one hand against the railing. “This is precisely why I kept them away.”
Sebastian turned so slowly that the old man’s fingers tightened.
“Do not mistake silence for permission to speak.”
“You asked what I did. I prevented an exposure you were too reckless to foresee.”
“You stole eleven letters.”
“Twelve.”
Maya looked up.
Augustus’ eyes moved to her. “There were twelve.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“I sent eleven.”
“No,” he said. “You wrote twelve.”
Maya searched his face. “What was in the last one?”
Augustus said nothing.
Sebastian crossed to the scattered envelopes. He knelt, picked up three, then four, then gathered the rest without looking away from his grandfather.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just corrected the number.”
“I knew it existed.”
“Where is it?”
Augustus’ composure returned, but the fear remained in his eyes now that Maya had seen it.
“It never reached me.”
Clarissa came down the staircase. Her black heels made soft, measured sounds against the marble. She removed the diamond ring as she walked.
At the bottom, she placed it on the table beside the file.
The ring spun once, glittering coldly, then settled.
“No one leaves,” she said.
Maya looked at her.
Clarissa’s face had gone pale, but her voice did not tremble. “Not until I understand why my wedding was being built on top of three hidden children.”
“There will be no wedding,” Sebastian said.
“I gathered that.”
She looked at Augustus, not Sebastian. “But someone leaked this meeting. Someone knew Maya would be here. Someone knew there would be a confrontation worth photographing.”
Augustus glanced toward the relatives above.
Four people stood along the balcony: Sebastian’s aunt Evelyn, two distant cousins who sat on the Vale Holdings board, and Marcus Vale, Augustus’ younger son. None of them spoke.
Clarissa followed his gaze.
“Which one of you made the call?”
Marcus frowned. “Don’t be absurd.”
“You had a phone in your hand when they arrived.”
“I usually have a phone in my hand. It’s the twenty-first century.”
“Then show me your outgoing calls.”
He gave a small, contemptuous laugh. “You’re not family.”
“Neither is Maya, apparently, though you’ve all spent four years arranging your lives around keeping her that way.”
Maya reached for the children.
“I don’t care who called a photographer. I’m taking them out of here.”
This time Sebastian did not argue. He motioned to a woman near the east archway, a security officer Maya had not noticed because she wore a plain navy suit instead of the Vale staff’s usual black.
“Lena will drive.”
The woman stepped forward. She was in her forties, with dark hair cut at the jaw and a face that offered no false reassurance.
“No second car,” Maya said. “No convoy.”
“One car,” Lena agreed.
“No weapons near the children.”
Lena looked at Sebastian.
He nodded.
“Nothing visible,” Lena said.
“That’s not what I said.”
The woman studied her, then opened her jacket and removed a compact handgun from a shoulder holster. She handed it to another guard.
Maya hated that the concession made her trust Lena slightly more.
They left through the service garage. Noah held Maya’s hand. Ivy carried the small overnight bag Maya had packed because she had not believed the attorney when he said the meeting would take less than an hour. Owen pressed the faded rabbit against her face until only her eyes showed.
Sebastian followed them to the car.
Maya opened the rear door, buckled Owen into a child seat the security staff had somehow produced, and turned to find him standing close enough that she could see a pale scar near his left temple.
“Do they have allergies?” he asked.
“No.”
“Medication?”
“Noah has a cardiology appointment next month. Nothing urgent.”
His gaze went to Noah. The boy was climbing into the middle seat with the stuffed dog under his arm.
“Is something wrong with his heart?”
“We don’t know. That’s why I wrote you.”
Sebastian looked as though she had struck him.
Maya had imagined telling him many times. In her angriest versions, he apologized immediately. In others, he accused her of lying, and she had the satisfaction of leaving before he could finish.
She had never imagined the reality of his face. The failure of it. The way a man known for controlling rooms suddenly had nowhere to put his hands.
“I never saw the letters,” he said.
“I believe that now.”
He swallowed.
It should have pleased her. It did not.
“Where will you go?”
“A hotel my attorney arranged.”
“Which hotel?”
“I’m not telling you.”
His eyes narrowed, not with anger but calculation. Maya saw him stop himself from asking again.
“Call this number if anything feels wrong.” He held out a card.
She did not take it.
He placed it on the front passenger seat.
“Maya.”
She looked at him.
“I am sorry.”
The words sounded strange in his mouth, as if he had not used them often enough for them to fit.
She closed the door.
May you like
The hotel was in Brooklyn Heights, a quiet place with narrow hallways, old brass fixtures, and no lobby bar to attract strangers. Maya’s attorney had reserved two connected rooms under the name Bennett, which annoyed Lena.
“You should have used something else,” she said.
