Chapter 2 - The Email Nathan Never Sent
Grace refused the ambulance until a paramedic showed her the swelling across her back.
“You need imaging,” he said.
Lily would not release her hand.
Nathan rode with them to the hospital.
Victoria left the penthouse in a separate police vehicle after giving a statement. She was not handcuffed. Her attorney had already called before officers finished photographing the strap.
At NewYork-Presbyterian, Nathan sat in a plastic chair outside the examination room.
He had negotiated billion-dollar transactions with less fear than he felt watching Lily color a paper butterfly under the supervision of a nurse.
The child kept looking toward him.
Every time she did, Nathan felt something twist inside him.
Grace returned wearing a hospital gown beneath an open coat.
“No fracture,” she said. “Just bruising.”
Nathan stood.
“Grace.”
“Not here.”
“We’ve waited five years.”
Her eyes flashed.
“I waited five years. You didn’t.”
The words landed harder than he expected.
They found an empty family consultation room.
Lily sat beside Grace.
Nathan remained across from them.
“Tell me everything.”
Grace laughed softly.
“People like you always say that after the secret becomes inconvenient.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“Is Lily my daughter?”
“Yes.”
One word.
No hesitation.
Nathan gripped the edge of the chair.
“When did you know?”
“Five weeks after I left Cole Meridian.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
Nathan stared at her.
Grace opened her handbag with shaking fingers and removed a folded sheet sealed inside a plastic sleeve.
She placed it on the table.
Nathan recognized the old Cole Meridian email template.
To: Grace Mercer
From: Nathan Cole
The message was brutally short.
I have no interest in revisiting what happened between us. Whatever personal issue you believe now involves me, handle it privately. Do not contact my family or company again.
At the bottom was Nathan’s electronic signature.
His stomach turned.
“I never wrote this.”
Grace watched him.
“I believed you did.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were back with Victoria. Your father was ill. I’d been dismissed from my job. What was I supposed to think?”
Nathan read it again.
There was a sentence beneath the signature.
Any further attempt to contact Mr. Cole will be treated as harassment.
Signed by Nathan’s executive office.
“I never saw your message.”
“I sent three.”
“To where?”
“Your company address. Your personal assistant. And one by certified mail.”
Nathan looked up.
“Who signed for the letter?”
Grace’s eyes shifted away.
“I don’t know.”
Nathan thought of Victoria’s comment.
Ask her why I hired her.
“Why did you come back?”
Grace’s shoulders tightened.
“Two years ago, Victoria found me.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she want?”
“She offered me the household position.”
Nathan almost laughed from disbelief.
“You accepted a job working for the woman married to the father of your child?”
“I needed money.”
“I would have helped you.”
Grace’s expression hardened.
“You had already told me not to contact you.”
“I told you I didn’t write that.”
“I know that now.”
Nathan looked at Lily.
“And you let my daughter live around me without telling me?”
Grace winced.
“She didn’t live here. She came only when my childcare failed.”
“You let me see her.”
“Twice.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of Victoria?”
Grace met his eyes.
“Yes.”
He lowered his voice.
“What did she threaten you with?”
Grace said nothing.
Lily suddenly whispered, “Mommy?”
Grace touched her hair.
“I’m right here.”
Nathan forced himself to breathe.
“This isn’t helping her.”
Grace’s eyes filled.
“You think I don’t know that?”
His anger softened.
“What happened today?”
Grace looked toward the door.
“Lily’s preschool closed early. Victoria knew I had her with me. She told me to bring her upstairs and keep her in the staff room.”
Nathan frowned.
“Then?”
“I was cleaning your study. Lily wandered in. She picked up Victoria’s blue phone from the desk.”
“What blue phone?”
“A second phone Victoria keeps hidden.”
Nathan felt his pulse quicken.
“What was on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grace.”
“I never got to see. Victoria came in and lost her mind.”
Lily spoke quietly.
“She said I was bad.”
Nathan turned toward her.
The child stared at her shoes.
“She said Mommy was a liar.”
Grace pulled her close.
Nathan’s voice became almost too calm.
“Did Victoria hit you?”
Lily nodded.
Grace shut her eyes.
Nathan stood so abruptly the chair scraped backward.
Grace looked up.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“My wife beat my daughter with a strap.”
“You don’t know what she’s capable of when cornered.”
“And you do?”
Grace hesitated.
Then she removed another document from her bag.
A bank cashier’s check copy.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Paid five years earlier.
To Grace Mercer.
Nathan stared at it.
“Victoria paid you?”
Grace’s face went pale.
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Silence.”
Nathan’s expression broke.
Grace looked away.
“There’s more.”
Before Nathan could answer, his phone rang.
His general counsel.
Nathan stepped into the hallway.
“Nathan,” Jordan Price said, “Victoria’s attorney has notified the board that she intends to file a domestic violence complaint over the slap.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Jordan continued.
“And she claims Grace Mercer has been attempting to extort your family with a false paternity allegation.”
Nathan looked through the glass.
Grace was holding Lily.
Lily looked back at him.
“Get me a DNA test.”
Jordan went silent.
“Nathan—”
“Today.”
When Nathan returned, Grace already understood.
“You still need proof.”
“I need evidence nobody can bury.”
She stared at him for several seconds.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
The DNA samples were collected before midnight.
At 2:17 the next afternoon, Jordan called again.
“The laboratory expedited it.”
Nathan stood alone in his office.
“And?”
“Probability of paternity exceeds 99.99 percent.”
Nathan sat down.
Jordan did not stop there.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“I spoke with the trustee managing your father’s estate.”
Nathan’s blood went cold.
“Why?”
“Because apparently Arthur Cole left instructions involving any biological child of yours.”
Nathan looked toward the photograph of his father on the wall.
Jordan lowered his voice.
“Lily’s existence doesn’t just change your family.”
May you like
A pause.
“It changes who controls the company.”
