Clara held Liam tighter, as if the question itself might steal him.
“No,” she said first.
Nathaniel felt his chest split.
Then she closed her eyes. “No, you do not get to ask like that.”
He lowered his gaze. “You’re right.”
Liam lost interest in the watch and turned his attention to chewing the corner of his bib, unimpressed by adult devastation.
Nathaniel stepped back because he needed space to hold the blow. The envelope slid from under his arm and nearly fell before he caught it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
Clara stared at him, and now anger finally rose through the grief. “I tried.”
“When?”
“Three times.”
“I never received anything.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
Ruth crossed to an old sideboard, opened a drawer, and removed a blue folder thick with papers. She set it on the table with no gentleness.
“Here,” Ruth said. “Copies of emails. Screenshots of messages. A certified letter that came back unopened. A note from your company’s legal office saying any attempt by my granddaughter to assign paternity to you would be treated as extortion.”
Nathaniel did not touch the folder at first.
Because before he opened it, he already knew.
His mother, Margaret Caldwell, with her diamond crosses and obsession with bloodlines. Vivienne Harrington, with her gracious smile and appetite for power. The attorneys who treated human pain as risk exposure. And him, worst of all, for letting other people manage his life as if his heart were another subsidiary.
“I didn’t authorize that,” he said.
Clara’s expression did not change. “But you made it possible.”
The sentence entered cleanly, like a blade handled by someone too tired to enjoy using it.
His phone began vibrating in his pocket.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
He glanced at the screen.
Vivienne.
Maggie made a small sound. “Oh, perfect. Let the bride enter the episode.”
Clara looked away, uncomfortable despite herself.
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