Chapter 3
Nathan reached the hospital before midnight.
Two police officers stood outside Grace’s room.
Daniel walked beside him carrying a leather briefcase and the expression of a man preparing for war.
Detective Finch intercepted them.
“You can’t go inside.”
Daniel handed him a business card.
“My firm now represents Grace Bennett.”
Finch looked at Nathan.
“You retained counsel for her?”
“Yes.”
“You understand she may have attempted to manipulate you?”
Nathan stepped closer.
“I understand that someone nearly broke her shoulder in my kitchen.”
Finch lowered his voice.
“And I understand we found enough evidence in her bedroom to keep her locked up for a very long time.”
“Evidence can be planted.”
“You have proof of that?”
“Not yet.”
“Then don’t make accusations.”
Nathan’s eyes hardened.
“You’re standing in a hospital hallway guarding a woman who can barely lift her arm while the woman who hit her walked out of my house.”
“Ms. Vale claims self-defense.”
“There’s blood on my floor.”
“And no camera footage.”
Nathan froze.
Finch noticed.
“There were cameras in the kitchen?” the detective asked.
“Three.”
“And?”
“They were disabled.”
Finch stared at him.
“By whom?”
Nathan didn’t answer.
Because he suddenly remembered something.
Victoria had insisted on changing the home security company six weeks earlier.
She had called it a wedding gift.
Better cameras.
Better protection.
Better privacy.
Nathan felt sick.
Daniel touched his arm.
“Let me handle this.”
He turned to Finch.
“My client will not answer questions tonight. She has a fractured clavicle, two cracked ribs, and a concussion.”
Nathan’s head snapped toward him.
“Two cracked ribs?”
Daniel nodded grimly.
“The hockey stick wasn’t the only injury.”
“What do you mean?”
“The doctor found older bruising.”
Nathan stared through the small glass window in the hospital door.
Grace lay on the bed.
Her face looked almost colorless.
“She’d been hurt before today?”
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Within the last week.”
Nathan felt rage rise through him.
Victoria.
He knew it before anyone said her name.
“She attacked Grace before.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Daniel stopped him.
“Knowing and proving are different things.”
Nathan hated that sentence.
He had built an empire on proof.
Numbers.
Contracts.
Evidence.
Now the evidence was everywhere.
And every piece seemed designed to point in the wrong direction.
Finch stepped away to answer a call.
Daniel used the moment.
“Five minutes.”
He spoke to the officer.
“My client needs to discuss representation privately.”
After some argument, Nathan and Daniel entered Grace’s room.
Grace opened her eyes.
The moment she saw Nathan, panic crossed her face.
“Lily?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“Child services.”
Grace tried to sit up.
“No.”
Pain forced her back.
“No, Nathan. You don’t understand.”
“What?”
“They’ll move her.”
“Who?”
“Victoria.”
“She can’t.”
Grace laughed bitterly.
“You still think rules matter to those people?”
Nathan moved closer.
“Tell me everything.”
Grace stared at Daniel.
“He knows?”
“Some of it,” Daniel said.
Nathan placed his father’s letter on the blanket.
Grace recognized the handwriting.
Her entire body went still.
“He admitted it?”
“Yes.”
Tears formed in her eyes.
“Too late.”
Nathan swallowed.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Grace looked at him.
“You don’t know what it was like.”
“Then tell me.”
Silence.
Finally she spoke.
“Five years ago, I came to your office because I was pregnant.”
Nathan remembered that day.
Grace had been twenty-four.
She had worked in financial compliance two floors below his office.
They had dated quietly for almost a year.
He had loved her.
Or thought he had.
Then she vanished.
No call.
No message.
Her apartment emptied overnight.
Her phone disconnected.
Nathan had spent months looking.
His father had told him she had taken money and left the country.
Nathan had believed him.
Grace’s voice pulled him back.
“I never reached you.”
“Why?”
“Your father’s security took me downstairs.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“They brought me to a conference room.”
Grace looked away.
“Your father was there.”
Daniel remained silent.
“So was Malcolm Vale.”
Nathan’s hands curled into fists.
“And Victoria.”
The words hit him harder than he expected.
Grace continued.
“They already knew.”
“How?”
“I told one person in human resources I needed information about maternity leave.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
The company had never been a workplace.
It had been a surveillance system.
“Your father put a folder in front of me.”
Grace’s breathing became uneven.
“Inside were photographs of my mother’s house. My younger brother’s school. My bank records. My medical file.”
Nathan whispered, “Jesus.”
“He said I had two choices.”
Grace’s eyes filled.
“I could sign an agreement stating the pregnancy had nothing to do with you and leave New York immediately.”
“Or?”
“They would accuse me of stealing confidential financial data.”
Nathan went still.
Grace gave him a broken smile.
“Your father knew I had access to audit files.”
“They would have framed you.”
“Yes.”
Nathan looked toward the door.
Exactly like now.
“They also had a custody petition already prepared,” Grace said. “Malcolm told me that if the baby was yours, they would prove I was mentally unstable and take her from me after birth.”
Nathan could barely breathe.
“Why didn’t you call me later?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Thirty-seven times.”
He stared.
“What?”
“I bought prepaid phones. I emailed you from library computers. I mailed letters to your apartment.”
“I never got them.”
“I know.”
Grace’s voice cracked.
“Because your father controlled your mailroom, your security, your assistants, and half the people around you.”
Nathan remembered changing assistants twice that year.
He remembered his father telling him he was becoming distracted.
He remembered being sent overseas for six months to manage a failing acquisition.
A carefully arranged absence.
“You had Lily while I was in London.”
“Yes.”
Nathan sat heavily in the chair.
“I missed her birth.”
Grace closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“What day?”
“October fourteenth.”
Nathan repeated it quietly.
“October fourteenth.”
As if saying the date could recover something.
“What time?”
Grace looked at him.
“Three seventeen in the morning.”
“How much did she weigh?”
“Six pounds, eleven ounces.”
Nathan looked away.
His eyes burned.
He had negotiated a seventy-million-dollar contract that same day.
He remembered champagne.
People cheering.
His father telling him he had finally become the man the company needed.
And across the ocean, or maybe only a few states away, his daughter had taken her first breath.
Without him.
“I’m sorry.”
Grace’s expression changed.
“Don’t.”
“I should have found you.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have questioned him.”
“Yes.”
That answer hurt.
But he deserved it.
Grace stared at his father’s letter.
“There was a test.”
Nathan looked up.
“A paternity test?”
“Your father forced me to take one before I left.”
“The letter says it was altered.”
“I always knew it was.”
“How?”
“Because he showed me the result.”
Grace laughed without humor.
“It said you weren’t the father.”
Nathan frowned.
“And you knew it was impossible?”
“Yes.”
“Because—”
“You were the only man I had been with.”
Nathan’s chest tightened.
Grace continued.
“Your father told me the negative test would protect me. He said he would destroy it and leave us alone.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Two years later, Victoria found us.”
Nathan stood.
“What?”
Grace nodded.
“In Ohio.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she do?”
“She came to Lily’s daycare.”
Nathan felt every muscle in his body tense.
“She never touched her. She didn’t have to.”
Grace’s eyes darkened.
“She stood across the street and smiled at me.”
Nathan understood.
A message.
I know where you are.
“I moved again.”
“Where?”
“Colorado. Then Pennsylvania. Then back east after your father died.”
“Why come back?”
Grace hesitated.
“Because I received a letter.”
Nathan frowned.
“What letter?”
“Anonymous.”
“What did it say?”
“That Richard Cole was dead.”
Nathan waited.
Grace looked directly at him.
“And that Victoria was looking for Lily again.”
A chill moved through him.
“You took a job in my house because you wanted protection.”
“At first.”
“Then why not tell me immediately?”
“Because I didn’t know whether you were part of it.”
Nathan absorbed that quietly.
Grace had looked at him every day for three months.
Cooked in his kitchen.
Cleaned his rooms.
Watched him kiss Victoria.
All while wondering if he was one of the people who had destroyed her life.
“Why did you bring Lily here today?”
“I didn’t.”
Nathan frowned.
“What?”
“Victoria did.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Explain.”
Grace’s face changed.
“She called Lily’s babysitter.”
Nathan went cold.
“Victoria knew where Lily was staying?”
“Yes.”
“She told the babysitter I’d had an accident and sent a driver.”
Nathan stared.
“She brought Lily here.”
Grace nodded.
“Then she called me into the kitchen.”
“What did she want?”
“Something your father gave me years ago.”
Nathan’s pulse quickened.
“What?”
Grace hesitated.
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You kept it five years without knowing?”
“Your father gave it to me the last time I saw him.”
Nathan stared.
“When?”
“Eight months before he died.”
Nathan’s world shifted again.
“You saw my father last year?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He found me.”
Grace’s voice dropped.
“But he wasn’t threatening me anymore.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Malcolm had become dangerous.”
Nathan glanced at Daniel.
Grace continued.
“He said he’d made terrible mistakes. He said if anything happened to him, I should never give the key to Victoria.”
Nathan’s voice became barely audible.
“Where is it?”
Grace looked at him.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“I’m not telling you until Lily is safe.”
Daniel nodded.
“That’s reasonable.”
Nathan turned toward him.
“I need an independent DNA test tonight.”
Grace grabbed his hand.
“No corporate lab.”
“I know.”
“Not your hospital network either.”
“Fine.”
Daniel said, “I know a court-certified genetic specialist in Brooklyn. No connection to Cole Industries or Vale Capital.”
“Do it.”
The door opened.
Detective Finch entered.
His expression was grim.
“We have a problem.”
Nathan stood between him and Grace.
“What now?”
Finch held up his phone.
“Child services just contacted us.”
Grace’s face went white.
“What happened to Lily?”
Finch looked at her.
“Someone presented an emergency guardianship order.”
Nathan stared.
“Who?”
Finch hesitated.
Then looked at Nathan.
May you like
“Victoria Vale.”
Grace screamed.
