Chương 4
Damian’s fingers flexed at his sides. “It sounds as though she did.”
“Does she like children?”
The question disarmed him more completely than accusation would have.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Lily frowned. “How can you not know?”
Because Celeste Cross had hired nannies for other people’s children, sent gifts through assistants, and treated childhood as an inefficient period to be managed. Because Damian’s earliest memory of his mother involved being corrected for crying at his grandfather’s funeral. Because she could identify weaknesses in a contract from across a room but had once forgotten his age during a television interview.
“I don’t know,” he repeated.
Naomi checked the time. “Lily needs sleep.”
Damian looked at the rain streaking the office window. “Where are you staying?”
“At my apartment.”
“Is there space?”
Naomi’s eyes hardened. “Enough.”
“That wasn’t an insult.”
“It usually is when rich men ask it.”
“I meant whether Lily has a bed.”
“She has my bed. I have the couch.”
Damian nodded once. “I can arrange a suite here. Separate rooms. No cost, no conditions.”
“No.”
“Naomi,” Lily said quietly, “your couch hurts your neck.”
“We’re not staying in his hotel.”
“It isn’t mine anymore,” Damian said.
“That makes everything better.”
He let the sarcasm pass. “Then I can pay for a larger apartment.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you met her twenty-five minutes ago, and you’re already trying to rearrange where she sleeps.”
The letter lay between them.
Do not arrange the world until there is no room left for me to say no.
Damian’s gaze dropped to it.
“You’re right,” he said.
Naomi seemed irritated by the agreement.
He took a business card from his wallet, then stopped before extending it. “May I give you my number?”
“You can give it to me.”
He wrote a second number on the back. “The handwritten one reaches me directly. No assistant.”
Naomi accepted the card.
Damian picked up the ring and offered it to Lily. “This belongs to you.”
She did not take it.
“Mom said it was yours.”
“It was hers. She decided it should reach you.”
“What if I lose it?”
“Then we find it.”
“What if we can’t?”
Damian looked at the faded red thread. “Then it will still have done what she wanted.”
Lily considered this, then opened her hand.
He set the band gently in her palm.
Her fingers closed around it. “Will you be here tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know where I’ll be.”
“No. But if Naomi allows it, I will come wherever you are.”
Naomi drew breath to object.
Lily spoke first. “At eleven.”
Damian looked at Naomi.
She stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “There’s a diner on Ashland. Eleven. Public place. One hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
“No security at the table.”
“I understand.”
“No lawyer.”
“All right.”
“No photographers.”
“That is not something I can entirely control now.”
“Try.”
Damian nodded.
Lily slid the ring back through the faded red thread but did not return it to the rabbit’s ear. She looped it twice around her wrist and held the loose ends in her fist.
At the doorway, she turned.
“What did you call her?”
“Eva.”
“No. Like when it was only you and her.”
Damian felt the answer somewhere beneath his ribs.
“Bird.”
Lily’s watery brown eyes narrowed. “That’s a weird name.”
“She hated it.”
“Then why did you call her that?”
“Because she always came back to argue.”
A small, unwilling smile appeared on Lily’s face. It was gone almost immediately.
“Mom liked arguing.”
“I know.”
After they left, Damian remained in the office with Marlene. The ballroom beyond the wall filled with the muted labor of dismantling an evening that had cost more than Naomi likely earned in a year.
Malcolm entered without knocking. “The video is already online.”
Damian did not react.
“The first upload has seventy thousand views. Two networks have called. So has the board chair.”
“My mother?”
“She’s on her way.”
Damian looked toward Marlene. “Go home.”
She untied her apron. “I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid.”
“Yes.”
Marlene’s eyes filled, but her voice remained level. “Fear doesn’t become noble because it lasts seven years.”
“No.”
She left with her uniform folded over one arm.
Malcolm waited until the door closed. “We need a statement before speculation solidifies.”
“A child’s mother died six days ago.”
“And by morning, every outlet in the country will have her photograph.”
“I asked them not to record.”
“You announced she was your daughter beneath thirty thousand dollars’ worth of chandelier lighting. You know exactly how the world works.”
Damian turned toward him. “I knew exactly how the world worked until an hour ago.”
Malcolm placed his tablet on the desk. The paused image showed Damian kneeling before Lily, the ring between them. Someone had added a caption claiming a secret heiress had interrupted the Cross Foundation gala.
“She is seven,” Damian said.
“The internet is not famous for restraint.”
“Have legal issue takedown requests where possible. No threats against individual guests. Contact the foundation’s communications team and tell them not to identify Lily, Eva, Naomi, the school, or the neighborhood.”
“They may already be identified.”
“Then remove whatever we can.”
“What do we say about paternity?”
“Nothing until a test is conducted.”
“That contradicts what you said in the ballroom.”
“I was shocked.”
“Which is not a legal defense against securities volatility.”
Damian gave him a flat look. “She is not a securities event.”
“Everything connected to you becomes one.”
The door opened again.
Celeste Cross entered in a charcoal coat, her silver hair unmoved by the rain. At sixty-eight, she carried age as if it were another employee expected to remain discreet. She closed the door behind her and looked at the ring on the desk, though Damian had thought Lily had taken it.
It was not the ring. Only a wet circle left by the hot chocolate cup.
Celeste’s attention shifted to him.
May you like
“What have you done?”
Damian studied her face.
