Chapter 4
Alessandra did not confront Sybil.
Not immediately.
Instead, she followed the money.
The Ashford family controlled hotels, restaurants, private clubs, and several less public businesses through layers of companies that required accountants precisely because memory and loyalty were unreliable.
Alessandra asked the family office to review every payment made to Vanessa Cole, Ethan Cole, or companies associated with either of them.
The first report arrived the following evening.
Ethan’s security consultancy had received routine payments for years.
Vanessa had not.
Then, twenty-six months earlier, a new consulting vendor appeared.
Cole Lifestyle Strategies.
Alessandra stared at the name.
“What does it do?”
Her controller, Margaret Price, shook her head.
“No real operating history that I can find.”
Payments totaled $312,000.
The approvals all came from Sybil’s family hospitality foundation.
Two years.
Not four months.
Not eleven months.
Sybil had been sending money toward Vanessa’s family long before Gavin claimed he knew Milo might be his.
Alessandra called Gavin downstairs.
She placed the report in front of him.
He read three pages before looking up.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“Your mother has.”
Gavin ran a hand through his hair.
“She told me she found Vanessa through Ethan this spring.”
“She was paying Ethan’s sister two years ago.”
Gavin read the dates again.
His confusion looked real.
Alessandra hated that she could still recognize his real expressions.
“What did your mother show you when she said Milo was yours?”
“A DNA report.”
“Original?”
“A copy.”
“From where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You accepted a six-year-old child as yours because your mother handed you a photocopy?”
His jaw tightened.
“I remembered Vanessa. The timing fit.”
“And you wanted it to be true.”
Gavin looked at her.
That answer hurt him.
Which meant it was probably close.
“Maybe.”
Alessandra folded her arms.
“Why?”
He looked through the windows toward Manhattan.
“Because with you, I’m always Alessandra Ashford’s husband.”
She said nothing.
“With Vanessa, I wasn’t.”
There were apologies that reopened wounds.
That sentence simply explained one.
The affair had made him feel important.
The possibility of another son had made him feel central.
Sybil had known exactly which weakness to feed.
Gavin closed the report.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“When Mom showed me the DNA result, Vanessa wasn’t there.”
Alessandra looked at him.
“Did Vanessa ever tell you herself that Milo was biologically yours?”
Gavin opened his mouth.
May you like
Then stopped.
He could not remember her ever saying it.
