Chapter 2
Celia did not run toward me.
That hurt.
She ran toward Elias.
Dropped to her knees.
Wrapped both arms around him.
Then checked his face, his hands, his shoulders.
A mother counting what had returned.
“I’m okay,” he whispered.
She kissed his hair.
Only then did she look at me.
No relief.
No romance.
Anger.
“Four years.”
I could barely speak.
“I thought he was dead.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
Lenette moved.
Celia saw her and immediately stepped in front of Elias.
That reaction mattered.
I turned.
“What did you tell her?”
Lenette said nothing.
Celia laughed once.
Broken sound.
“She told me you wanted nothing to do with us.”
I stared.
“What?”
“After your ambush.”
Memory hit.
Four years earlier.
I had been recovering at a private property in Montreal after being attacked during a business meeting.
Three weeks away.
Limited visitors.
Rafe with me.
Lenette acting as family liaison because my uncle Cedric managed operations.
Celia had been at Alderbourne North House with thirteen-month-old Elias.
Then the call came.
Lenette’s voice.
Elias had developed a sudden respiratory infection.
There were complications.
He died overnight.
Celia was inconsolable.
She insisted on immediate cremation because she could not bear a viewing.
I received an urn.
A lock of baby hair.
And one message supposedly from Celia:
Don’t come looking for me. I can’t survive your world anymore.
I believed grief had taken both of them.
One dead.
One gone.
Now Celia looked at me like I had abandoned them deliberately.
“What were you told?”
Her jaw trembled.
“That you questioned whether Elias was yours.”
I went completely still.
“And?”
“That you wanted us removed before you came home.”
My hands curled.
Celia continued.
“They said if I fought you, Alderbourne would take him.”
“Who said?”
She looked straight at Lenette.
“And Cedric.”
My uncle.
The man who had held my father’s right hand for twenty-three years.
Then Celia raised the bundle she carried.
Letters.
Returned unopened.
Every one addressed to me.
“I stopped believing them two years ago.”
Her eyes filled.
“So I started writing.”
I looked at Lenette.
“Did you see these?”
She whispered:
“Yes.”
May you like
That was when grief disappeared.
What replaced it was colder.
