Chapter 2 - THE AGREEMENT EMMA SIGNED
Ethan did not speak for several seconds.
Then he looked at Victoria.
“You knew my mother fabricated an affair?”
“I knew she had interfered.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I did not know every detail.”
“When did you know?”
Victoria’s chin trembled.
“Three years ago.”
Their engagement had happened eighteen months later.
Ethan looked physically sick.
“You said nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That you would go looking for her.”
His eyes shifted toward me.
There it was.
Not fear of scandal.
Fear of me.
I almost laughed.
“You knew exactly what would happen.”
Victoria looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Ethan pushed his chair away.
Then turned to me.
“What agreement did you sign?”
I had known that question was coming.
Richard sat slowly.
The restaurant suddenly felt too small.
I said:
“Your mother’s attorney called me the morning after she showed me the photographs.”
“Who?”
“Charles Brenner.”
Ethan knew the name.
Family counsel for twenty-five years.
Retired now.
Still alive.
“He told me you wanted no contact.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“I never said that.”
“I know.”
“What did the agreement say?”
“That I would leave Manhattan.”
“What else?”
“I would not contact you or your immediate family.”
“Why would you sign that?”
I looked toward Noah again.
Because this part still hurt.
“Because I was pregnant.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Victoria closed her eyes.
Richard already knew.
That was why he had brought us here.
Ethan looked at me as if the room had tilted.
“You were what?”
“Six weeks.”
His hand gripped the chair.
“When?”
“When I signed.”
His eyes immediately moved toward the private room.
Toward Noah.
No one needed to say it yet.
He already knew the math.
Six years old.
Almost seven.
Seven years since I disappeared.
His voice dropped.
“No.”
I said nothing.
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“No.”
He looked at Richard.
“You knew?”
“Not then.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Ethan’s face broke.
“Two years?”
Richard accepted the accusation.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I needed proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That Emma had not taken money and vanished willingly.”
“That took five years?”
“No.”
Richard looked at Victoria.
“What delayed me was discovering how many people helped Margaret.”
Victoria stood.
“I should go.”
Ethan turned.
“Sit down.”
She froze.
Not because he shouted.
Because he did not.
He had gone completely calm.
The dangerous kind.
Victoria sat.
I continued before rage took over.
“The agreement said your family would create a medical trust for the baby.”
Ethan stared.
“What baby?”
“Our baby.”
His face changed again.
“Why would my mother offer a trust if she wanted me to think you left for money?”
“Because she wanted the child protected financially without being publicly recognized as yours.”
Ethan whispered:
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
His mother knew I was pregnant.
She knew the baby could be a Blackwood heir.
And instead of telling Ethan, she created a structure to keep us away.
“What did she threaten you with?” Richard asked softly.
Ethan looked sharply at me.
“Threaten?”
I had never told Richard everything.
Not even when he found me.
I said:
“She told me if I refused to leave, she would make sure you lost control of Blackwood Holdings.”
Ethan almost laughed.
“My mother didn’t have that power.”
“She said your grandfather’s trust had a morality clause.”
Richard’s face darkened.
“It did.”
Ethan looked at him.
“What?”
Richard continued.
“Old language. Scandal provision. It could temporarily suspend voting rights during certain family disputes.”
Ethan stared at me.
“And you believed she would destroy my career because of me?”
“No.”
My voice became quiet.
“I believed she would destroy your relationship with your grandfather by telling him I was pregnant and claiming I planned to use the child to force marriage.”
Ethan’s mouth opened.
Stopped.
“That’s insane.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I tried.”
His eyes filled.
“The letters.”
“Yes.”
Every month.
For almost a year.
I wrote.
I called.
I left voicemails from public phones after mine stopped connecting.
Nothing came back.
Then eventually the fear won.
I built a different life.
Ethan sat down slowly.
Then asked:
“What happened to the medical trust?”
Richard answered.
“Margaret funded it.”
“How much?”
“Five million.”
I stared.
That was new.
“I was told it was two hundred fifty thousand.”
Richard shook his head.
“The quarter million was the fake payment to you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where is the rest?”
Richard’s expression changed.
“That is why I contacted Emma.”
Ethan looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because the five-million-dollar trust no longer exists.”
Silence.
Richard continued.
“Someone emptied it three months after Margaret died.”
Ethan went completely still.
“Who?”
May you like
Richard looked toward Victoria.
And this time she began to cry before he said her name.
