Chapter 3 - HIS EXPLANATION
|
Alexander did not force his way into Willow Lane. That, more than anything, told Clare how frightened he was. The man who could make an entire room fall silent stood on her grandmother's porch, waiting for permission to enter a house he had once dismissed as too small.
“Five minutes,” Clare said. “And you don't touch my phone, my papers, or me.”
He nodded.
Inside, he noticed the ultrasound on the kitchen table. His expression changed, softening for a heartbeat before he saw the trust documents in her hand.
“You went through my files.”
“Someone sent them to me.”
“Who?”
“That's what you're worried about?”
Alexander dragged a hand over his face. “No. I'm worried that someone has access to confidential records and is using you to reach me.”
“You're worried about being reached? I heard you call our marriage a situation.”
He flinched. It was small, but Clare saw it.
“I was trying to keep Vanessa calm,” he said. “She's involved in a negotiation with men who would use any weakness against my family.”
“Then why tell her she was carrying your heir?”
“I didn't say she was pregnant.”
“You said she was carrying your heir.”
“I was talking about the position she wants. She believes she can secure the succession if she controls the trust.”
Clare looked at him for a long time. “You always know how to make a cruel sentence sound like a business memo.”
Alexander sat down, but kept his hands on the table where she could see them. He explained that Vanessa's father had financed a portion of the Romano family's legitimate shipping business years earlier. After his death, Vanessa inherited a minority stake and had spent months demanding greater control. The trust was intended as a defensive measure, Alexander claimed, a way to prevent rival families from seizing the company if he were attacked.
“Why didn't you tell me?” Clare asked.
“Because the less you knew, the safer you were.”
“That excuse has become the wall you hide behind.”
He looked toward the ultrasound. “I didn't know you had it.”
“I was going to show you at the gala.”
The silence between them was so complete that the refrigerator seemed loud.
Alexander's voice dropped. “I should have been there.”
“Yes.”
“I should never have spoken about you that way.”
“No.”
He looked up, perhaps expecting forgiveness to begin with the apology. Clare did not offer it.
“Did you sleep with her?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did you promise to leave me?”
“I said I would decide what happened next. I shouldn't have said it.”
“That's not an answer.”
He stood and walked to the window, visibly restraining himself from pacing. “Vanessa threatened to expose details about my father's death. I believed she had evidence that could destroy the family and put people in danger. I was trying to buy time.”
“By giving her control of our daughter's inheritance?”
“I thought I could reverse the trust before it became active.”
“Did you sign it?”
“Yes.”
The answer fell between them like a dropped plate.
Clare moved the papers away from him. “Then you don't get to tell me this was all for my protection.”
Alexander's eyes filled with something she had rarely seen in him: not tears, exactly, but the strain of a man whose control was failing.
“I love you.”
“You may love me,” she said. “But love isn't a password that unlocks my trust whenever you need it.”
He left when she asked him to. At the door, he turned back.
“Vanessa knows you're here now. I can put guards outside.”
“No.”
“Clare—”
“I want a life where every door isn't watched by your men.”
After he left, Clare checked the porch camera. Alexander stood beside his car for almost a minute, staring at the house before driving away.
Then the camera feed flickered.
A figure in a dark hood crossed the garden and placed something beneath the window.
Clare waited until the figure disappeared before opening the door. On the ground lay a small silver bracelet she had lost months earlier.
May you like
Attached to it was a note in block letters.
ASK ALEXANDER WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS FATHER'S LAST WITNESS.
