Chapter 1 - THE LETTERS
Ethan’s face changed the moment his father said the word.
“Letters?”
Richard Blackwood looked at me.
I wished he hadn’t.
Because suddenly Ethan was watching me instead.
“What letters?”
I tightened my grip around Noah’s backpack.
“Richard.”
He understood the warning in my voice.
Too late.
Victoria did too.
That was what caught my attention.
She did not look confused.
She looked alarmed.
Ethan turned toward his father.
“What is he talking about?”
Richard pulled out the empty chair.
“Sit down.”
“I’m not sitting down.”
“Then stand and listen.”
Something in his tone stopped everyone.
Richard Blackwood rarely raised his voice.
He never needed to.
Even at seventy-two, he had the kind of presence that made boardrooms become quiet before he spoke.
He looked at Ethan.
“Emma wrote to you.”
My heart started pounding.
Ethan laughed once.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Every month for almost a year.”
Ethan looked at me.
“You wrote?”
I swallowed.
“Twelve letters.”
His face emptied.
“Where?”
“To your apartment first. Then your office.”
“I never received anything.”
“I know that now.”
Victoria’s fingers tightened around her glass.
I saw it.
Richard saw it too.
Ethan did not.
Not yet.
He stepped closer to me.
“What did they say?”
I looked toward the private dining room where Noah was laughing at the model train.
Not here.
Not like this.
“Nothing that belongs in a restaurant.”
Ethan’s anger returned because anger was easier for him than uncertainty.
“You disappeared. You let me believe you took money from my family. And now apparently there are letters?”
“I did not take your family’s money.”
“You signed the settlement.”
“Yes.”
“So you took it.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“What exactly do you call two hundred fifty thousand dollars deposited into an account connected to you three days before you disappeared?”
My stomach twisted.
Because that number had haunted me too.
“I never touched that money.”
“You expect me to believe someone transferred a quarter million dollars into an account with your name on it for fun?”
“No.”
I looked at Richard.
“I expect someone in this family to finally admit why.”
Richard’s face darkened.
Ethan noticed.
“Dad.”
Richard exhaled.
“The money did not come from Emma.”
“I know that.”
“It came from a Blackwood family holding account.”
Ethan’s eyes sharpened.
“Whose authorization?”
Richard hesitated.
That was enough.
Ethan’s voice dropped.
“Whose?”
“Your mother’s.”
Silence.
Even Victoria looked toward him now.
Margaret Blackwood.
Ethan’s mother.
Dead four years.
Elegant.
Brutal.
The woman who once told me privately that affection was not qualification for marriage.
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“My mother paid Emma to leave.”
“No.”
Richard’s voice hardened.
“She tried to make it look that way.”
Ethan stared.
I felt the old nausea return.
Seven years disappeared and suddenly I was twenty-six again, standing in a lawyer’s office with a pregnancy test in my purse and a document in front of me.
Richard continued.
“Margaret created the transfer.”
Ethan looked at me.
“You knew?”
“I learned after.”
“After what?”
I closed my eyes.
“After she showed me the photographs.”
“What photographs?”
Richard whispered:
“Ethan.”
But I was done protecting dead people.
“Photographs of you with another woman.”
Ethan stared.
“That never happened.”
“I know.”
“What woman?”
I looked directly at Victoria.
She went pale.
Ethan followed my gaze.
And finally he understood why his fiancée had been so quiet.
“Victoria?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
I reached into my purse.
Seven years ago, I had destroyed almost everything connected to the Blackwoods.
Almost.
One photograph remained.
I placed it on the table.
Young Ethan.
Twenty-nine.
Outside a hotel.
A woman in a dark coat leaning against him.
Her face turned enough to recognize.
Victoria Hale.
Ethan picked it up.
His voice came out rough.
“This was taken at the Boston investment conference.”
“Yes.”
“She was drunk.”
Victoria whispered:
“Ethan—”
“I walked her to a cab.”
I nodded.
“I know now.”
His eyes lifted.
“What do you mean now?”
“Your mother showed me six photographs.”
“From angles that made it look like an affair,” Richard said.
Ethan stared at Victoria.
“You knew about these?”
She looked down.
Then whispered:
“Not then.”
Wrong answer.
Ethan heard it.
“What does that mean?”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
“I found out later.”
“How much later?”
She said nothing.
Richard answered for her.
“Before your engagement.”
And the first truth of the night finally cracked something open.
May you like
Victoria had known Ethan’s mother helped destroy us.
And she had still agreed to marry him.
