Chương 6
She pressed two fingers beneath her eye.
“Don’t make me cry.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“You’re terrible at obeying instructions.”
“So was Michael.”
Ava laughed once.
It hurt her ribs.
Then they were quiet again.
Eleanor looked toward the damaged phone.
“I shouldn’t have asked for that report.”
“The lawyers asked.”
“I asked you to comply.”
“You wanted certainty.”
“I wanted Victoria to stop.”
Ava turned to her.
“That never works.”
“No.”
Eleanor’s voice was almost inaudible.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Victoria called her mother fourteen times before sunrise.
Eleanor did not answer.
She listened to the first voicemail in the hospital parking garage at 5:18 a.m.
Victoria was crying so hard that some words blurred.
Mom, please call me.
You know I didn’t mean—
She moved.
She was angry.
She keeps provoking—
Daniel is going to destroy me.
Please.
Please don’t let him.
Eleanor stopped the message.
For a long time she remained in the driver’s seat, both hands resting on the steering wheel.
She had not driven herself to the hospital in years.
The car smelled faintly of Margaret’s peppermint gum because Margaret used it when running errands.
Eleanor looked at the concrete pillar ahead of her.
When Michael had been nine, he and Victoria had broken a crystal bowl during an argument. Victoria blamed him.
Michael blamed Victoria.
Eleanor had made both children apologize and then replaced the bowl.
She remembered congratulating herself on fairness.
Years later, Michael told her Victoria had thrown it deliberately because he would not give her a toy he was playing with.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
“You both blamed each other.”
“No,” Michael had said. “I told you she threw it. You decided that meant we were both fighting.”
At the time, Eleanor had been offended.
Now, in the garage, she covered her face.
The phone rang again.
Victoria.
Eleanor let it ring.
Ava woke shortly after seven with Daniel asleep in the chair beside her.
He slept badly in chairs. His head had fallen at an angle that guaranteed a neck ache. One long leg extended into the aisle. His black shirt was wrinkled. Someone had brought him coffee hours earlier; it sat untouched on the windowsill.
Ava watched him for a moment.
There had been a time when seeing Daniel asleep felt almost invasive.
He was guarded even with people he loved.
Michael had been different.
Michael slept like a man arguing with gravity. Arms everywhere. Blankets stolen. Pillows on the floor.
For the first year after Michael died, Ava had believed loving anyone else would require replacing him.
That assumption had done more damage than grief itself.
Daniel had never asked to replace anyone.
Maybe that was why she eventually trusted him.
Her monitor shifted.
Daniel woke instantly.
“You’re staring at me.”
“You snore.”
“I don’t.”
“You did.”
“No.”
“Very feminine little snore.”
He sat up.
“Now I know you’re lying.”
Ava smiled.
Then her face tightened.
A contraction.
Daniel saw it.
He did not speak.
The line on the monitor rose.
Twenty seconds.
Thirty.
Then eased.
A nurse entered soon afterward.
By midmorning, the doctors were cautiously optimistic. The contractions had decreased. There were no signs that immediate delivery was necessary. Ava would remain under observation longer, but the panic had receded into something manageable.
Daniel finally drank the cold coffee.
He made a face.
“Good?”
“It tastes like somebody described coffee to water.”
“Drink it.”
He did.
At ten, his head of communications called.
Daniel declined the first call.
The second came four minutes later.
Ava looked at him.
“You should answer.”
“No.”
“If it’s about last night, I need to know.”
He hesitated.
Then answered on speaker.
“Go.”
A woman’s voice said, “A photographer got video of Victoria leaving the district station with her attorney.”
Ava closed her eyes.
Of course.
The photographer likely had no idea why Victoria was there. Wealth attracted lenses the way porch lights attracted insects.
“Anything published?” Daniel asked.
“Not yet. We’ve had one inquiry asking whether there was an incident at the Bennett residence involving your wife.”
Ava opened her eyes.
Daniel’s expression became unreadable.
“Who?”
The communications officer named a financial news site that followed Daniel because Cross Strategic Holdings was considering a major acquisition.
Daniel looked at Ava.
She shook her head.
“Do not confirm details,” he said.
“Understood.”
“And do not deny that Ava is my wife.”
Ava looked at him.
There had never been a public announcement.
Their marriage was legal, ordinary, and intentionally quiet. Twelve people had attended the ceremony at a county courthouse followed by dinner in a private room at a restaurant where the fire alarm went off during dessert.
They had not lied about it.
They simply had not advertised it.
Daniel’s public biography still described him as private about personal matters.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Someone contacted the Bennett family office this morning asking about a paternity dispute.”
Ava’s stomach dropped.
Daniel went still.
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out.”
The call ended.
Ava stared at the blanket.
“That was fast.”
“Yes.”
“Too fast?”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
Ava looked up.
“Too fast?”
“Yes.”
The police report would not yet be widely available. Hospital staff could not legally discuss her. Eleanor had said nothing. Margaret was loyal and had too much sense.
Victoria had been with her lawyer.
Ava felt something cold move through her.
“She’s doing it.”
Daniel leaned back.
“We don’t know that.”
“She’s using the test.”
“We don’t know that.”
“She thinks if she turns this into a paternity scandal, nobody will care about the push.”
“That would be an extremely bad legal strategy.”
“You’re assuming strategy.”
Daniel rubbed a hand over his face.
“That is fair.”
Ava reached for her phone.
The screen lit.
Forty-three notifications.
She did not open them.
Instead she called Eleanor.
Eleanor answered on the first ring.
“Ava.”
“Has anyone contacted the family office about the test?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“When?”
May you like
“Half an hour ago.”
“Who knew what was in it?”
