Chương 10
She refused it.
“Sell it,” she told Priya. “Donate it. Launch it into space. I don’t care.”
Adrian did not sell it.
He placed it in a bank vault because doing nothing was the only option that did not feel like another decision made for her.
The letter concerning Lily was worse.
Leonard had sent it.
He had represented that Adrian had been notified of Mara’s paternity claim when he had not.
He had threatened aggressive litigation if Mara sought public acknowledgment.
He had not technically forged Adrian’s signature.
He had done something easier.
He had used the authority Adrian had already granted him.
The board fired Leonard.
Federal investigators eventually opened inquiries into procurement fraud and document handling. Civil litigation followed. Vale Group disclosed material findings to regulators and contract partners.
The company’s stock fell eleven percent in two days.
Commentators argued about whether Adrian had been corrupt, negligent, betrayed, arrogant, unlucky, or all of those things in varying percentages.
Old photographs of Mara appeared online.
So did photographs of Lily.
That was the moment Adrian lost his temper.
He called the company’s communications chief and demanded the images be removed everywhere.
The woman waited until he finished.
“From the internet?”
He shut his eyes.
“Yes. I heard it.”
He called Mara next.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what now?”
“The photographs.”
“I assumed you didn’t post them.”
“I nearly fired someone because she couldn’t erase the internet.”
Mara was silent.
Then she laughed.
“That sounds like you.”
“I’m improving.”
“Debatable.”
He leaned against his office window.
“Is Lily okay?”
“She doesn’t understand it.”
“Good.”
“No, Adrian. Not good. She understands enough to know strangers know her name.”
His hand tightened around the phone.
“What do you need?”
Mara did not answer immediately.
That question was new between them.
Finally she said, “Privacy. Real privacy. Not your kind where lawyers threaten everyone.”
“What does real privacy look like?”
“Stop commenting publicly about paternity.”
“I’ve only confirmed the test.”
“Stop.”
“All right.”
“Tell your people not to call me.”
“All right.”
“Do not send security to my apartment without asking.”
He hesitated.
Mara heard it.
“Adrian.”
“All right.”
“And Lily wants to see you Saturday.”
His entire body went still.
“What time?”
“She picked ten.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Not with a convoy.”
“I don’t travel with a convoy.”
“You travel with three cars.”
“That is occasionally necessary.”
“Saturday it isn’t.”
He looked at his security chief through the office glass.
“One car.”
“One normal car.”
He almost argued over the definition.
Then he remembered the observatory.
“All right.”
His first Saturday with Lily lasted one hour and forty minutes.
Mara stayed.
That had been the condition.
They met at a quiet science museum outside Denver because Lily had decided that if her father owned an observatory, he should be good at space.
He was.
That disappointed her.
“I wanted to teach you something.”
“You can.”
“What?”
He looked around.
She considered.
“Penguins.”
“There are no penguins here.”
“I know more about them than you.”
“That’s probably true.”
She looked pleased.
They ate grilled cheese in the museum café.
Lily removed the crusts.
Adrian watched her make a neat pile.
Mara noticed.
“What?”
“My mother did that.”
Mara looked at Lily’s plate.
“You never told me.”
“I never noticed until now.”
They went quiet.
Lily dipped a piece of sandwich into ketchup.
Adrian looked horrified.
She saw.
“You don’t like ketchup?”
“Not on grilled cheese.”
“Then don’t eat mine.”
Mara covered a smile.
It was not reconciliation.
It was lunch.
That distinction became important.
Adrian wanted to move quickly.
He wanted schedules, predictable visits, school information, medical records, legal clarity.
Mara resisted almost everything.
Their first mediation session went badly.
Adrian arrived with a proposed parenting plan prepared by one of the best family-law firms in Colorado.
Mara read the first page and pushed it back.
“No.”
His attorney began explaining that it was merely a draft.
Mara looked at Adrian.
“You brought twelve pages.”
“I thought structure would help.”
“You met her three times.”
“Four.”
“That is not better.”
Adrian felt embarrassed and became cold.
Mara recognized the sequence immediately.
“You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Turning uncomfortable into corporate.”
His lawyer became fascinated by his legal pad.
Adrian folded his hands.
“What do you propose?”
“Time.”
“That is not a plan.”
“It is when you have a five-year-old.”
They argued for forty minutes.
Then the mediator asked both attorneys to leave the room.
Adrian hated that.
Mara enjoyed his hatred for perhaps thirty seconds before feeling guilty.
That annoyed her too.
Eventually they agreed to two supervised visits a week, with Mara present initially and Elena approved as an alternate.
No overnight visits.
No travel without written agreement.
No public appearances.
No gifts above an ordinary value without discussing them first.
Adrian objected to the gift rule.
Mara said, “She does not need a pony.”
“I have never offered her a pony.”
“You bought her a telescope.”
“It cost ninety dollars.”
Mara blinked.
“Oh.”
Adrian looked offended.
“I can purchase normal objects.”
The mediator coughed into her hand.
Mara started laughing.
Adrian tried not to.
Failed.
They signed the plan.
Vanessa moved out of Adrian’s Manhattan apartment in February.
She had waited longer than her friends understood.
Long enough to learn that the affair with Mara had ended years before she and Adrian met.
Long enough to understand that Lily was not evidence of infidelity against her.
That did not repair what had cracked.
One night she returned to collect the final boxes from his apartment.
Adrian found her sitting on the bedroom floor with a stack of old photographs.
“Our wedding planner keeps emailing me,” she said.
“I’ll handle it.”
“No.”
He stopped.
Vanessa looked up.
“That phrase.”
“What phrase?”
“I’ll handle it.”
He leaned against the doorframe.
She put the photographs back into the box.
“You do understand why I can’t marry you.”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
He did not answer.
Vanessa stood.
May you like
“I watched you change after the observatory.”
He looked at her.
