Chương 10
“Are you going to tell your mother?”
“She already knows the result is coming.”
“Will she say sorry?”
“I don’t know.”
“You say that about her a lot.”
“There are many things I do not know about my mother.”
Lily looked toward the window, where reporters still waited beyond the curtains. “Does she know me?”
“No.”
“Then why did she decide she didn’t want me?”
Damian felt Naomi’s attention on him.
“She decided she did not want a problem she believed you would create,” he said. “That was cowardly and wrong. It was not because of who you are.”
Lily rubbed the rabbit’s flat paw. “She didn’t even look at me.”
“No.”
“I don’t like her.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Do you?”
Damian’s answer took longer.
“She is my mother.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
That afternoon, Celeste requested to meet Lily.
Damian refused.
She came to Naomi’s building anyway.
Owen called from the street. “Your mother is at the entrance.”
“Do not let her upstairs.”
“She says she has a right to see her granddaughter.”
“She has no such right today.”
Damian ended the call.
Lily had heard.
“Is she downstairs?”
“Yes.”
Naomi moved toward the window. “There are cameras.”
Damian picked up his coat. “I’ll handle it.”
Lily caught his sleeve.
He stopped.
“What will you say?”
“That she must leave.”
“Will you yell?”
“No.”
“Will she listen?”
“I don’t know.”
Lily released him. “You should learn more things.”
Celeste stood beneath the awning in a cream wool coat while reporters shouted questions from behind the police barrier. She had chosen a color that looked maternal on camera.
Damian stepped outside and closed the building door behind him.
“You need to leave,” he said.
Celeste held a wrapped box. “I brought something for Lily.”
“She does not want gifts.”
“You have known her four days.”
“And you chose not to know her for seven years.”
Celeste’s gaze flicked toward the cameras. “Not here.”
“You made here unavoidable.”
“She is my granddaughter.”
“She is not a title you can reclaim.”
“I made a terrible decision.”
The words were quiet enough that the reporters could not hear.
Damian studied her. Celeste almost never admitted error without attaching a clause that reduced it.
“I was afraid you would collapse again,” she said. “Your father had already prepared the board vote. If Eva returned with a child, you would have abandoned everything.”
“Perhaps.”
“I believed I was protecting your future.”
“You protected the future you preferred.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised him.
Celeste looked at the building entrance. “Let me apologize.”
“No.”
“She deserves to hear it.”
“She deserves to choose whether she hears it.”
Celeste’s fingers tightened around the gift box. “You are punishing me.”
“This is not about you.”
“It is partly about me.”
“Not today.”
Her eyes hardened, then softened with visible effort. “What did the test say?”
“You know.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“She is my daughter.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
When she opened them, moisture had gathered but did not fall. “Then I lost seven years too.”
“You gave them away.”
A reporter called Damian’s name.
Celeste looked toward the cameras, and he saw the calculation begin: angle, posture, consequence.
He stepped between her and the building door.
“Go home.”
She handed him the gift.
He did not take it.
After several seconds, she placed the box on the wet pavement and walked toward her car. A photographer crouched to capture the abandoned package.
Damian picked it up only after she left. Inside was a silver music box engraved with Lily Cross.
He returned upstairs without it.
“What was the present?” Lily asked.
“Something with the wrong name.”
“Did you throw it away?”
“No. Owen has it.”
“Can he take the name off?”
“Probably.”
“What is it?”
“A music box.”
Lily considered this. “I don’t like music boxes.”
“Then the problem is solved.”
The independent review of Celeste’s actions began the next week. Richard Bell, her former attorney, initially claimed he had no relevant files. When Cross Holdings’ audit committee requested archived billing records, he found several.
One invoice referred to reviewing a “potential paternity assertion by former spouse.” Another covered a draft response that was never sent. The response warned Eva that further unannounced visits could be treated as harassment.
Celeste had approved it.
There was no evidence she had paid Eva or threatened Lily directly. The truth was smaller and more ordinary. She had relied on status, silence, and the expectation that a woman without money would not force her way through.
Marlene gave a formal statement. She described the yellow shoe, the envelope, and Eva’s face when she left the salon.
“She did not cry,” Marlene told the committee. “That is what I remember. She looked embarrassed for having hoped.”
The sentence reached Damian in a confidential transcript. He read it at his desk, then went into the private bathroom and remained there until the next meeting had to be canceled.
The missing attachment from Nora Hale’s email proved harder to recover. Cross Holdings’ server archives showed that a file had existed but not what it contained. Nora, now living in Oregon, agreed to speak with Damian by video.
“I remember the note,” she said.
She had aged in the years since working for him. Her hair was gray at the temples. Behind her, wind moved through tall trees.
“What did it say?” Damian asked.
“Not much. Eva wrote that she had tried to see you and understood you might not want contact. She asked you to call a number if you ever wanted to know why she had left.”
“Did she mention Lily?”
“No.”
“That was the attempt she abandoned,” he said.
“Possibly.”
“Why didn’t you call me before forwarding it?”
Nora’s expression grew guarded. “Because you had instructed everyone not to mention Eva unless there was a legal threat.”
“I was not well.”
“No.”
May you like
The word contained no cruelty.
“Did I frighten you?” he asked.
