Chương 5
Not, Who was the child?
Not, Is it possible?
“What did you say to Eva in the salon across the hall?”
Malcolm went still.
Celeste removed her gloves one finger at a time. “This is not a discussion for staff.”
“Malcolm knows every unflattering number attached to our family. He can survive this.”
“Damian.”
“She had a baby with her.”
Celeste set the gloves on the desk. “Marlene told you.”
“Did Eva tell you the child was mine?”
“She claimed it.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I believed she knew how to hurt you.”
He looked at the chair where Lily had been sitting.
“She was an infant.”
“I did not see the child’s face.”
“That protected you?”
Celeste’s mouth tightened. “You had spent eleven months barely functioning. You were drinking every night. You had canceled the Red Hook project three days before closing because a stairwell reminded you of her. Your father was threatening to remove you from the company. Then she appeared without warning, carrying a baby and demanding access to you.”
“Did she demand money?”
“No.”
“What did she demand?”
Celeste’s pause was brief, but Damian saw it.
“Five minutes,” she said.
He laughed once. There was no humor in it. “And you protected me from five minutes.”
“She had left you. She had sent a letter instructing you not to contact her. She threatened a restraining order when you hired investigators.”
“I hired them because she disappeared.”
“You hired them after she asked to be left alone.”
Damian turned toward the window.
Rain blurred the city lights. His reflection floated over them in black: wavy hair, beard, shoulders drawn tight beneath the suit. For years he had told himself he had searched for Eva because love demanded it. He rarely examined the part of the search that had treated her refusal as a malfunction he could correct.
“Where is the envelope she gave you?” he asked.
Celeste said nothing.
He faced her.
“Where is it?”
“I destroyed it.”
Malcolm drew a slow breath.
“When?”
“That night.”
“Did you read it?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t remember the wording.”
“You remember every amendment in a forty-page contract.”
“This was seven years ago.”
“Did it say the child was mine?”
Celeste’s chin lifted. “Yes.”
Damian’s hand closed around the back of a chair.
“Did it include proof?”
“A copy of the birth record. Your name was not on it.”
“Anything else?”
“A photograph.”
The chair creaked beneath his grip.
“Of Lily?”
“I assume so.”
“You assume.”
“She was a baby.”
“What was she wearing?”
Celeste looked toward the door.
“What was she wearing?”
“A yellow sweater.”
Marlene had remembered a yellow shoe.
Damian released the chair. White marks remained across his palm where the wood had pressed into the skin.
Celeste’s voice softened, though softness had never made her gentler. “You were not well.”
“So you decided I did not have a daughter.”
“I decided not to let a woman who had already destabilized you use an unverified claim to do it again.”
“Did Father know?”
“No.”
“Anyone else?”
“My attorney at the time.”
“Name.”
“Richard Bell.”
“Have Malcolm contact him.”
Celeste looked at Malcolm. “You will do no such thing.”
Malcolm shifted his weight. “Mrs. Cross—”
“Leave,” Damian said.
Malcolm collected his tablet.
Celeste turned on him. “You report to the board.”
“He reports to me tonight.”
Malcolm left without choosing a side aloud.
Celeste waited until the door closed. “You are making decisions while emotionally compromised.”
“A seven-year-old stood in front of me carrying my wife’s wedding ring.”
“Former wife.”
“We never divorced.”
“She abandoned the marriage.”
“And I made staying feel like captivity.”
Celeste’s face changed slightly. It was the look she gave when someone violated an agreement by naming what everyone else had accepted as unspeakable.
“Eva was not helpless,” she said.
“No. She left.”
“She also concealed your child.”
“Yes.”
“You are rushing to absolve her because she is dead.”
Damian picked up Eva’s letter. “She did not absolve herself.”
Celeste glanced at the page but did not ask to read it.
“She told me not to blame everyone else,” he said. “That suggests you were not the only failure.”
“I did what I believed was necessary.”
“So did Eva. So did I. The child still grew up without a father.”
“You do not know that she is yours.”
“No.”
“Then stop behaving as though sentiment is evidence.”
Damian folded the letter and returned it to the envelope.
“Tomorrow morning, you will give Malcolm Richard Bell’s current contact information and written authorization to release every record connected to Eva’s visit.”
“I will not.”
“Then I will seek them through litigation.”
“You would sue your own mother over a dead woman’s accusation?”
“No. I would sue you over a living child.”
Celeste studied him for a long time.
“You sound like your father when he wanted something.”
The words were intended as a warning.
Damian nodded. “That is what frightens me.”
He left her in the office.
At three in the morning, Damian sat alone in the kitchen of his penthouse with Eva’s letter beside a cup of coffee he had forgotten to drink. The apartment’s walls were lined with art selected by consultants. No family photographs were displayed. His mother had once called the place restful. Eva had called it an expensive waiting room.
He searched old emails until the letters blurred. Eva’s name produced thousands of results from the years they were together and almost nothing afterward. He found messages from investigators, attorneys, and private security firms. Each one documented his determination. None proved that he had listened.
At four twelve, he located an email from December seven years earlier. The sender was his former assistant, Nora Hale.
Possible unsolicited contact. Woman identifying herself as E. Arden left the attached note with reception. Security has no appointment record. Please advise.
May you like
The attachment was missing.
Damian remembered the day. His father had been preparing to announce a leadership transition. Damian had slept two hours, drunk through the previous night, and threatened to resign if anyone mentioned Eva again. He searched his sent folder.
