Chapter 2 - TWO DIFFERENT BREAKUPS
Mara did not believe me.
I could see it in the way she watched my hands.
Not my face.
My hands.
As though she expected me to tear the letter, hide it, or make evidence disappear the way everything else had apparently disappeared six years earlier.
I placed the paper back on the table.
“Keep it.”
“It’s mine.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to take it to some family lawyer.”
“I’m not asking to.”
That surprised her.
Behind us, four boys were arguing over whether the Tribeca apartment’s automated blinds were magic.
For the first time since I saw them, the situation became almost unbearably real.
They had voices.
Preferences.
Arguments.
Milo liked mustard.
Max hated it.
Mason organized his fries by size.
Micah dipped everything in ketchup, including apple slices.
These were not theoretical children I had lost.
They were five-year-olds who had lived entire lives without me.
“How did you find out you were pregnant?” I asked.
Mara folded her arms.
“Two weeks after you supposedly dumped me.”
“I didn’t dump you.”
“From my side, you absolutely did.”
She sat across from me.
Six years ago, I had been twenty-eight and preparing to spend nine months in Singapore opening Mercer Capital’s Asian office.
Mara and I planned to continue long-distance for three months, then she would join me after finishing her restaurant-management certification.
Two days before my flight, we argued.
A real argument.
The kind couples survive all the time.
I wanted her to move into the family townhouse until she joined me abroad. She refused because she hated the surveillance and constant staff.
I accused her of rejecting every part of my life.
She accused me of letting my mother manage us.
Both accusations contained enough truth to hurt.
I left angry.
The next morning, I apologized by text.
She answered.
Love you. Still mad.
Those were the final words I ever knowingly received from her.
“My phone stopped working the night you flew out,” Mara said.
“What do you mean?”
“Your number disconnected.”
“It didn’t.”
“Every call gave me a service message.”
“I used that number for another year.”
“Not when I called.”
A sinking sensation began in my stomach.
Mara continued.
“My emails bounced. Your corporate assistant told me you requested no personal contact.”
“My assistant then was Lauren Cho.”
“She never spoke to me directly. Everything went through reception.”
“I never gave that instruction.”
“I went to your office.”
“When?”
“Three times.”
I stared at her.
“Security wouldn’t let me upstairs. The third time, one of your family attorneys came down.”
“Who?”
“Harrison Webb.”
My teeth clenched.
Harrison had represented the Mercers for more than twenty years.
“He said you had authorized him to handle communication.”
“What did he give you?”
Mara went to the duffel bag again.
Another folder.
She had kept everything.
That fact embarrassed me because I had kept almost nothing.
Why would I preserve evidence of a woman I believed had sold our relationship?
She placed a copy of a cashier’s check on the table.
One hundred thousand dollars.
Payable to Mara Ellis.
“I never cashed it,” she said.
The check was issued from Mercer Family Office.
My name did not appear anywhere.
“Harrison said it was pregnancy-related support conditioned on confidentiality.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him to go to hell.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
That sounded like Mara.
“He came back two days later with the letter.”
The forged one.
“He said you were angry I refused the money. He told me you believed I had gotten pregnant intentionally.”
I closed my eyes.
“I never knew.”
“You expect me to believe your entire family knew you had four children and nobody told you?”
“I don’t know who knew.”
“Your mother knew.”
“Yes.”
“Your lawyer knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you just conveniently didn’t?”
Her voice rose.
Milo looked toward us.
Mara immediately lowered it.
That reflex told me more about the last five years than any accusation.
She had learned to have adult crises quietly because four children were always listening.
“What were you told?” she asked.
I hated the answer.
“My mother came to Singapore three weeks after I arrived.”
Mara went still.
“She told me you requested a meeting with Harrison. She said you wanted money to leave quietly.”
“I asked for nothing.”
“I know that now.”
“What else?”
“She showed me a confidentiality agreement.”
“Signed by me?”
“Yes.”
“I never signed one.”
“I believe you.”
That was the first time I said those words.
Not because I was trying to win her.
Because I did.
The agreement stated that Mara accepted payment and voluntarily ended all contact with me and the Mercer family.
Her signature looked authentic.
That bothered her.
“It shouldn’t.”
“Could someone have copied it?”
She thought.
“My employment paperwork.”
“What?”
“When I worked the charity dinner at your mother’s foundation. I signed tax forms, confidentiality forms, event releases.”
My mother had access to all of it.
“Did the agreement mention pregnancy?”
“No.”
That was how they kept my version simpler.
Mara left because she wanted money.
No child.
No reason for me to search harder.
I remembered what my mother said in Singapore.
You were an experience for her, Adrian. Nothing more.
I had defended Mara for nearly an hour.
Then Harrison joined us by video call.
He confirmed the settlement.
I asked to speak to Mara.
He said her attorney refused.
There had never been an attorney.
The sophistication of the lie made me nauseous.
“They built two stories,” I said.
Mara looked at me.
“For you, I sold you.”
“For you, I abandoned my pregnant girlfriend.”
“Both stories made us too angry to keep looking.”
She stared at the letter.
“Your mother came to my apartment once.”
“When?”
“About a month before the boys were born.”
I sat forward.
“What did she want?”
“To make sure I understood that contacting you again would hurt your career.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Mara hesitated.
Then her voice went flat.
“She said you were engaged.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“To whom?”
“Brielle Cartwright.”
Six years ago.
The engagement my mother had finally arranged for tonight had apparently existed in her imagination for much longer.
“She said the Cartwright merger would collapse if your name got dragged through some paternity scandal.”
“My grandfather would have thrown her out of the company if he knew.”
“Your grandfather was still alive?”
“For another eight months.”
Mara stared at me.
My grandfather had loved me fiercely and distrusted my mother’s obsession with appearances almost as fiercely.
If he had learned about four great-grandsons, nothing could have kept him from finding them.
Which explained the timing.
“Did my mother ever mention him?”
“She said he agreed with her.”
“She lied.”
“How do you know?”
“Because his own father abandoned him. He hated men who abandoned children.”
The apartment became silent.
One of the boys laughed from the kitchen.
My eyes burned unexpectedly.
Mara noticed.
She looked away.
“Do you want a paternity test?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Her expression hardened.
“Not because I doubt you.”
“Then why?”
“Because these boys deserve a legal truth nobody can rewrite again.”
That answer satisfied her enough that she nodded.
I called an independent laboratory unaffiliated with Mercer insurance, Mercer doctors, or Mercer attorneys.
A technician came that evening.
Cheek swabs.
Five minutes.
Milo watched mine carefully.
When the technician finished, he touched the back of his neck.
I did too.
He smiled.
That smile nearly destroyed me.
The results would take forty-eight hours.
After the boys fell asleep, Mara and I continued comparing our records.
Her emails.
My messages.
Dates.
Calls.
Returned letters.
There were seven envelopes she had mailed to me in Singapore.
Every one was stamped undeliverable.
The address was correct.
I had lived there.
My phone buzzed at 11:36 p.m.
Nora.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw her message.
Call me. Something is wrong at the family office.
I stepped into the hallway and called.
“What happened?”
“I asked IT for archived communications from six years ago.”
“And?”
“Someone accessed the old Mara Ellis file twenty minutes after you canceled tonight’s engagement.”
My blood chilled.
“Who?”
“The login belongs to Harrison Webb.”
Harrison.
Still protecting the lie.
Tonight.
Not six years ago.
Now.
“What did he do?”
“Downloaded the archive.”
“Anything deleted?”
“We locked the account before he could.”
I looked through the glass wall toward Mara sleeping upright on the sofa, one son curled against each side of her.
This was no longer merely something terrible my family had done years ago.
Someone was actively trying to clean it up tonight.
“Nora.”
“Yes?”
“Freeze every family-office account Harrison can access.”
A pause.
“Your mother is going to lose her mind.”
“Let her.”
May you like
Then I called the only attorney I knew who had never worked for my family.
By midnight, the lie had become an investigation.
