Chương 7
“I don’t remember every person who attempted access to you.”
“She was not attempting access. She had access. Until I withdrew it.”
“You were leading a proxy fight. You directed staff to eliminate distractions.”
The word landed with the force of recognition.
Griffin saw the old email in his mind before he remembered writing it: NO PERSONAL CALLS. NO VISITORS. NOTHING THAT ISN’T THE VOTE.
He had sent it at 2:13 in the morning after Sloan left three messages he did not answer. They had argued the previous week. He had accused her of treating his work like a moral defect. She had accused him of using work to avoid every conversation he could not dominate.
He had thought a few days of silence would punish them both into clarity.
“How did you know she was pregnant?” Griffin asked.
Conrad’s gaze shifted toward the folder.
There. A pause smaller than most people would notice.
Griffin noticed because he had spent his childhood studying the spaces in his father’s face where truth went to hide.
“You knew,” he said.
“I knew she claimed to be.”
“Did you tell me?”
“You had ended the relationship.”
“I had not.”
“You had stopped answering her calls.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“To adults, it usually is.”
Griffin stood so abruptly that the water in the glasses shook.
“Meeting adjourned.”
“You cannot adjourn your own board.”
“Watch me.”
He walked out carrying the folder.
Daniel followed him into the elevator.
“Find Adrian Mercer,” Griffin said.
Daniel’s eyes flickered. “Your former chief of staff?”
“He was on the executive floor that year.”
“He retired.”
“People continue existing after retirement.”
“Usually.”
“Find him.”
The elevator descended.
Griffin called Sloan.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“The results are positive,” he said.
“I saw.”
He had imagined the moment in several forms during the previous three days. None included the fluorescent elevator light, Daniel beside him, or the sound of someone coughing through the phone near Sloan.
“I’m their father,” Griffin said.
“Biologically.”
The qualification irritated him, then shamed him for being irritated.
“I want to see them.”
“They’re at school.”
“After school.”
“We need to discuss what happens next.”
“Yes.”
“With a mediator.”
His grip tightened around the phone. “A family mediator?”
“A neutral professional who understands high-conflict co-parenting.”
“We are not co-parenting.”
“That is the problem.”
“I don’t intend to create conflict.”
“You arrived at their school after one text message.”
“She asked me to come.”
“You had your attorney add sample-retention language to a cheek-swab form.”
“That was Elise.”
“Elise works for you.”
“I told her to remove it.”
“After she put it there.”
The elevator opened into the lobby. Cameras flashed through the glass doors.
Griffin turned away.
“My father drafted a custody petition,” he said.
Sloan became silent.
“I didn’t request it,” he added. “I’m not filing it.”
“You expect me to be comforted that the weapon exists but you haven’t picked it up.”
“I’m telling you because you need to know.”
“Send it to my attorney.”
“You have an attorney?”
“I acquired one this morning. Unlike some people, I did not keep a family-litigation team warm for a decade.”
“Sloan.”
“I’ll contact you about mediation.”
She ended the call.
Griffin stood in the center of his own lobby while photographers called his name from behind security glass.
One shouted, “How many children did you hide, Mr. Drake?”
He almost laughed.
That afternoon, Griffin went to the twins’ school without entering. He parked half a block away in an ordinary sedan Daniel borrowed from an employee. Daniel objected to the security risk until Griffin reminded him that half the city now knew the license plates of his usual vehicles.
Hazel spotted him from the school steps.
She ran.
Iris did not.
Hazel stopped just before reaching him, uncertain whether she was allowed to hug him.
Griffin crouched.
“The test says yes,” he told her.
“I know. Mom told us.”
“How do you feel?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That makes two of us.”
She studied his face. “You look happy.”
“I am.”
“You also look sick.”
“I might be that too.”
Hazel stepped forward and put her arms around his neck.
He closed his eyes.
The hug lasted perhaps four seconds. It held eight years of absence and none of the forgiveness.
When she let go, Iris stood ten feet away beside Sloan.
Griffin rose.
Sloan’s expression was unreadable.
“I wanted them to hear it from me,” she said.
“They should have.”
Iris approached slowly. “Do you have other kids?”
“No.”
“A wife?”
“No.”
“A girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Hazel groaned. “Iris.”
“It matters.”
Griffin put his hands in his pockets. “I was engaged once. It ended.”
“Because of Mom?”
“No.”
“Because you’re bad at regular things?”
Sloan looked away, hiding the beginning of a smile.
“Possibly,” Griffin said.
Iris folded her arms. “I don’t want to call you Dad.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t want to visit your house.”
“All right.”
“I don’t want Daniel following us at recess.”
Daniel, standing beside the sedan, stared across the street.
“He won’t.”
“And you can’t buy Mom’s project.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“That’s not what she said. She said your company buys things by making it impossible for other people to keep them.”
Sloan closed her eyes briefly.
Griffin nodded. “Your mother and I disagree about my company.”
“Is she wrong?”
He looked at Sloan.
“No,” he said. “Not entirely.”
Iris seemed disappointed that he had not defended himself.
Hazel took his hand. “Can we see the helicopter when it isn’t an emergency?”
Sloan opened her mouth.
Griffin answered first. “Only if your mother agrees.”
Hazel looked betrayed by his sudden intelligence.
May you like
The mediator’s office occupied the second floor of a converted house in Wallingford. The waiting room had puzzles, herbal tea, and a sign asking clients not to discuss active disputes in common areas. Griffin read the sign twice while Sloan filled out forms.
The mediator, Nina Patel, was in her fifties and wore red glasses. She asked them what each hoped to accomplish.
