Chương 8
“Structure,” Sloan said.
“A relationship,” Griffin said.
Nina looked between them. “Those are not incompatible.”
“They are when he expects a relationship to begin at the level he wants,” Sloan said.
“I don’t know what level I want.”
“You asked for three evenings a week.”
“I asked to spend time with them.”
“You proposed Tuesday, Thursday, and alternate weekends.”
“Elise proposed it.”
“Elise continues to behave independently for a woman who bills by the hour.”
Griffin shifted in his chair. “I told her to draft options.”
“And she drafted a divorced-parent schedule for strangers.”
Nina raised a hand. “Let’s separate legal possibilities from emotional readiness.”
“I don’t want a custody battle,” Griffin said.
Sloan looked at him. “Neither did your father, apparently. He just drafted one recreationally.”
“I gave the document to your attorney.”
“You gave a copy. Your father’s counsel retains the original.”
“He cannot file on my behalf.”
“He can finance anything that frightens me.”
Nina asked what Sloan feared most.
Sloan looked through the window at a woman walking a terrier in the rain.
“That he will become important to them quickly,” she said, “and leave slowly.”
Griffin’s expression tightened.
Nina turned to him. “And you?”
“That they’ll decide I left before I knew they existed.”
“You did leave,” Sloan said.
“I left you.”
“You didn’t even do that honestly.”
“We had a fight.”
“We had six weeks of silence.”
“I was trying to save my company.”
“You were trying to win.”
“They were the same thing then.”
“To you.”
Nina let the silence settle.
Griffin rubbed his thumb against the edge of his watch. “I’m afraid every mistake I make now will be used to justify keeping me outside.”
Sloan’s shoulders lowered by a fraction.
It was the first fear he had expressed that did not sound like a demand.
They agreed to two supervised visits each week for one month, with Sloan present or a child specialist available. No overnight visits. No press statements identifying the twins. No gifts above a modest value without discussion.
Griffin objected to the word modest.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“It means no horses,” Sloan said.
“I wasn’t planning to buy horses.”
“Boats, then.”
“I don’t own a boat.”
“You own part of a shipyard.”
“That is not a boat.”
Nina removed her glasses. “I’m beginning to understand the concern.”
The first visit took place at a public library.
Griffin arrived twelve minutes early with four books, a board game, and a bakery box. Sloan inspected the box.
“What is that?”
“Cookies.”
“From where?”
“A bakery.”
“They have gold leaf.”
“It’s edible.”
“So is a six-dollar cookie.”
“They cost eight.”
“Of course they did.”
Hazel ate two. Iris refused until Sloan ate one, then chose the smallest.
The board game lasted nine minutes because Griffin misunderstood the rules and bought property he could not afford. Hazel accused him of cheating. Iris defended him on the grounds that cheating required competence.
Later, they wandered through the children’s section. Griffin learned that Hazel loved stories about disasters and Iris preferred books on insects, especially parasitic wasps.
“Why?” he asked.
“They make other insects raise their babies,” Iris said.
Sloan, standing behind them, coughed into her hand.
Griffin glanced back.
Iris noticed. “That wasn’t about you.”
“I didn’t assume it was.”
“It was a little about you,” Hazel said.
They left with eleven books.
Outside, a photographer waited beside a bus shelter.
Griffin saw him first.
He turned the girls back toward the library, but the shutter clicked before they reached the door.
Hazel froze.
Iris grabbed Sloan’s hand.
Daniel crossed the sidewalk and blocked the photographer’s view. The man shouted that he was standing on public property. Daniel agreed and continued standing.
Griffin guided the girls inside.
Hazel’s breathing quickened. “They’ll put us online again.”
“I’m working to prevent that,” Griffin said.
“You said regular people can’t erase the internet.”
“I’m not regular.”
Sloan looked at him sharply.
Hazel heard something else: a promise.
The photograph appeared before they got home.
A gossip site blurred the twins’ faces, but other accounts reposted the unblurred image within minutes. Griffin’s lawyers sent removal demands. Some sites complied. Others published articles about billionaire censorship.
At school the next day, a parent filmed Hazel and Iris arriving and posted the video with a caption about “Seattle’s secret heiresses.”
Sloan removed them from school for the week.
Griffin hired an online privacy firm without asking her.
The firm contacted parents, platforms, and local media. It also sent a letter to the school warning of potential liability.
The principal suspended all class communications involving the twins and requested that Sloan meet with the district’s legal office before they returned.
She called Griffin from her kitchen.
“What did you do?”
“I tried to protect them.”
“You threatened their school.”
“I did not.”
“Your vendor did.”
“They sent a preservation notice.”
“They cited potential claims.”
“Because adults were photographing children on school property.”
“So now the district sees my daughters as a lawsuit.”
“The district should see them as students entitled to privacy.”
“They should. But you turned the temperature to boiling because someone lit a match.”
“I can correct it.”
“No. You can stop.”
“I won’t stop protecting them.”
“This isn’t protection. This is panic with a legal budget.”
His voice hardened. “And what is your plan? Ask strangers to behave?”
“My plan was to work with the principal, the parent association, and the district. Quietly.”
“Quietly failed.”
“Quietly had one day.”
He said nothing.
Sloan’s anger wavered, revealing fatigue beneath it. “They are not an acquisition you secure after due diligence.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then learn their names before you deploy counsel.”
May you like
“I know their names.”
“Hazel sleeps with the closet light on but tells people she’s afraid of nothing. Iris cuts the tags from every shirt because she can’t stand the seams. Hazel lies when she thinks the truth will disappoint someone. Iris tells the truth when she knows it will hurt. Neither likes bananas unless Mrs. Chen fries them. They hate matching clothes now, but Hazel wears the ivory dress because Iris still does. They don’t need a security operation. They need room to be strange little people.”
