I took a breath.
“I want to be part of the baby’s life.”
The softness disappeared.
I continued before fear stopped me.
“But I know wanting something doesn’t give me the right to demand it.”
Elena stared at me.
“I’m not going to take the baby away from you.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You thought it.”
I had.
She knew me too well.
“I don’t know what I feel about you,” she said. “I need you to understand that.”
“I do.”
“I loved you when I signed the papers.”
My chest tightened.
“I loved you when I moved into that awful apartment.”
“Why didn’t you take the Fifty-Seventh Street place?”
“Because it smelled like you.”
I looked down.
“The apartment smelled like me?”
“Your cedar candles.”
“I don’t buy candles.”
“I know. I bought them. You stole them.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Elena looked away quickly.
“I hated that apartment,” she said. “I hated every room because I could imagine you walking through it.”
“I never went there.”
“That didn’t matter.”
Silence returned.
Then she said, “I can’t simply forget what happened.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I may never trust you again.”
“I know.”
“I may never want to be married to you again.”
My hands tightened.
“I know.”
This time, the words hurt.
Elena saw it.
For four years, she had been able to read every emotion I tried to hide.
Her face shifted.
Not pity.
Something more complicated.
“Why did you really fight with your father before he died?”
I looked at her.
The question seemed unrelated.
It wasn’t.
“My letter,” she said. “Daniel mentioned your father.”
“I saw.”
“Luke.”
I walked toward the window.
Six years earlier, I had stood at another hospital window.
My father had been connected to machines.
Daniel had been downstairs getting coffee.
I had been furious.
My father had been dying.
Neither fact had improved our conversation.
“He wanted me to leave Mercer Group,” I said.
Elena frowned.
“Why?”
“He believed I was becoming too visible.”
“Visible to whom?”
“He didn’t say.”
“That doesn’t sound like your father.”
“No.”
Samuel Mercer never spoke in vague terms.
He liked exact numbers.
Exact names.
Exact consequences.
But that night he had been terrified.
It was the only time I ever saw fear in his eyes.
“He told me there were things Daniel and I didn’t understand about the company,” I continued. “He wanted us to sell certain divisions.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought he was sick, medicated, and trying to control the business from a hospital bed.”
Elena watched me.
“And Daniel?”
“I never told Daniel.”
“Why not?”
“Our father died the next morning.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I turned.
“Because the last thing my father said to me was that Daniel could never know.”
Elena sat very still.
“What exactly did he say?”
I remembered every word.
Some memories fade.
Others grow sharper with time.
Samuel Mercer had reached for my wrist.
His hand was cold.
He had said, Luke, listen to me. Daniel can never know what I did.
“What did he do?” Elena asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But Daniel mentioned your father.”
“Yes.”
“And someone sent you photographs connected to an old Mercer dispute.”
“Yes.”
Elena leaned back against the pillow.
“This started before the divorce.”
I nodded.
“Then maybe Daniel didn’t create the threat.”
I looked at her.
“He lied to you.”
“Yes.”
“He isolated you.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
She swallowed.
“But sometimes I thought he was scared.”
The words unsettled me.
“Of me?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked toward the closed door.
“The last time Daniel came to the apartment, I asked him why he was doing this.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Because Luke will open the wrong door.’”
I stared at her.
“That means nothing.”
“It meant something to him.”
My phone rang.
Marco.
I answered.
“Tell me.”
“We have a problem.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
His voice was different.
Controlled.
Too controlled.
“I’m at Elena’s apartment.”
“Did you find the vitamins?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They’re standard prenatal vitamins.”
I exhaled.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“There’s someone here.”
My body went cold.
“Who?”
A pause.
Then Marco said a name I had not heard in years.
“Your mother.”
I gripped the phone.
My mother lived in Paris.
Or Rome.
Or occasionally Geneva, depending on which version of her life she happened to be presenting.
Vivienne Mercer had left New York eleven months after my father’s death.
She returned only for Christmas.
Sometimes.
“Put her on.”
“She’s asking for you.”
“Then put her on.”
There was movement on the other end.
A door closed.
Then my mother’s voice reached me.
“Luke.”
She sounded exactly the same.
Elegant.
Detached.
As if we were speaking about dinner reservations.
“What are you doing in Elena’s apartment?”
“Looking for something.”
“What?”
“I would rather not discuss it over the telephone.”
