“A private recording made under emotional circumstances proves nothing.”
“It proves you knew,” Grayson said.
His voice was quiet, but people moved away from him as though he had shouted.
Vivian looked at him with the expression she had used throughout his childhood whenever he challenged her: a mixture of disappointment and command.
“I knew she had produced two children she claimed were yours.
I did not know the claim was legitimate.”
“You didn’t want to know.”
“I wanted to protect your future.”
Grayson looked toward Elias and Noelle.
His future was standing ten feet away, frightened by the adults who had failed them.
He crossed the room slowly.
Samara stiffened when he approached, and the movement struck him harder than her anger would have.
She did not trust him near her children.
He had earned that distrust.
Grayson stopped several feet away.
“May I see him?”
Samara studied his face.
“Not hold him,” she said.
“Not yet.”
He nodded.
“All right.”
She turned Elias slightly.
Up close, the resemblance was undeniable.
The boy had Samara’s warm brown skin and dark curls, but his eyes were Holt gray.
A tiny crescent-shaped mark rested near his left ear—the same birthmark Grayson’s father had carried.
Elias stared at him, then clutched Samara’s dress.
Grayson swallowed against the pressure in his throat.
“Hello, Elias.”
The boy blinked.
Noelle made a soft sound from Claire’s arms.
Grayson turned toward her.
She watched him with wary curiosity, one hand curled around the satin bow at her waist.
He had missed their birth.
He had missed their first cries, first smiles, first illnesses, and first steps.
He did not know which songs calmed them or what foods they refused to eat.
He did not know whether they slept through the night.
He did not know the sounds of their laughter.
His mother had stolen those moments.
But Grayson had built the locked door she used.
He had told his staff to keep Samara away.
He had cut off her number.
He had chosen suspicion over love and pride over one final conversation.
“This is my fault too,” he said.
Vivian stared at him.
“Do not humiliate yourself.”
He turned.
“You threatened the mother of my children.
You intercepted private mail, used my employees to block her, and tried to frighten her into silence.
Yet you are worried that I might humiliate myself?”
“Everything I did was for you.”
“No.
Everything you did was for control.”
A murmur moved through the guests.
Vivian glanced around and seemed to realize, perhaps for the first time, that the room was no longer hers.
People she had spent decades impressing were looking at her with open disgust.
