Chapter 1 - DADDY
Nathan Cole entered the reception room expecting another argument about territory.
Instead, he saw a woman on the floor.
Grace Miller.
For one impossible second, the rest of the room disappeared.
He had not seen her in more than three years.
Not since the night she vanished from the Cole estate without saying goodbye.
Not since his men found her room empty.
Not since one of his oldest associates accused her of stealing information and helping an enemy enter the west wing.
Nathan had believed she ran because she was guilty.
He had hated her for it.
Then he had hated himself for caring.
Now Grace was struggling to rise from the polished floor while Victoria Hayes stood above her.
Victoria’s hand was twisted in Grace’s hair.
A little girl had thrown herself between them.
Three years old.
Small cardigan.
Tear-streaked face.
Victoria grabbed the child by one shoulder.
Nathan heard her whisper:
“Dead people keep secrets. So should their children.”
The little girl tore free.
She looked across the room.
Saw Nathan.
And ran directly toward him.
“Daddy!”
Nathan froze.
The word struck harder than any gunshot he had ever heard.
The child wrapped both arms around one of his legs.
Nathan looked down.
Then slowly toward Grace.
Grace had reached her feet.
Her lip was bleeding.
One side of her face was red.
She looked exactly as he remembered and nothing like the woman he remembered.
Fear had changed her.
So had motherhood.
“Nathan…”
His voice came out low.
“Why did she call me that?”
Grace’s eyes filled.
Victoria stepped forward.
“Don’t listen to her.”
Nathan turned his head.
Victoria stopped.
Grace swallowed.
“Nathan… Lily is your daughter.”
The room became completely silent.
Even the bodyguards looked away.
Nathan stared at Grace.
“No.”
Grace flinched.
“Three years and four months ago.”
Nathan remembered.
A storm.
A late night in the west library.
Grace had been working at the estate then, managing private household schedules after her father’s death.
She and Nathan had spent months circling something neither of them named.
One night they stopped circling.
Two days later, blood was found in the wine cellar.
A Cole courier was dead.
Grace disappeared before Nathan could question her.
Now a three-year-old child was holding his trousers and trembling against him.
Victoria moved.
Too quickly.
She lunged toward Lily.
Nathan caught her by both upper arms and tore her away.
Victoria gasped.
He shoved her backward onto the reception sofa.
Two bodyguards immediately stepped behind her.
“Nathan!”
He did not look at her.
Lily had hidden behind him.
Nathan crouched slowly.
Children had never frightened him.
This one did.
Because every line of her face felt familiar in ways he could not explain.
He kept his voice soft.
“What’s your name?”
“Lily.”
“How old are you?”
She held up three fingers.
“Three.”
Nathan looked at Grace.
“Did you tell her I was her father?”
Grace nodded.
“When?”
“Always.”
His jaw tightened.
“Then why have I never seen her?”
Grace closed her eyes.
Victoria laughed.
It was the wrong sound.
Nathan turned.
His fiancée had gone pale, but something beneath the fear looked almost like relief.
“You knew.”
Victoria’s expression changed.
Nathan stood.
“You knew who Lily was.”
“No.”
“Then why did you tell her dead people keep secrets?”
Victoria said nothing.
Grace whispered:
“Because she knows what happened to my father.”
Nathan looked at her.
Thomas Miller.
Grace’s father.
Former Cole adviser.
Dead four years.
Officially executed by an enemy crew after being accused of leaking routes.
Nathan had believed Thomas died because of a rival family.
Grace stared at Victoria.
“She knows what happened to him.”
Victoria rose.
One bodyguard moved.
Nathan lifted a hand.
Let her stand.
He wanted to see how she carried fear.
Victoria’s chin rose.
“Grace’s father was a traitor.”
Grace stepped forward.
“No.”
“He sold your family.”
“No.”
“He got men killed.”
“No.”
Grace’s voice broke.
“He died saving Nathan.”
Nathan stared at her.
Victoria looked toward the doorway.
Nathan saw it.
The instinct to leave.
“Lock the room.”
The doors closed.
Lily clung to Nathan again.
Something hard pressed against his trouser leg.
He looked down.
A black object was protruding from the pocket of Lily’s cardigan.
Nathan crouched.
“What’s this?”
Lily pulled it out.
A ring.
Heavy.
Black stone.
Cole crest.
Nathan’s breath stopped.
He knew the scratch beneath the crest.
He had made it himself when he was seventeen.
The ring had belonged to his younger brother Julian.
Julian Cole died twelve years ago.
Nathan himself had placed that ring inside the coffin.
He took it from Lily’s hand.
Grace went white.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Nathan looked at Victoria.
She had.
Her face betrayed her.
“Where did she get this?”
Victoria whispered:
“You should put it back where it came from.”
Nathan’s eyes became cold.
“Where did it come from?”
Victoria stared at him.
May you like
Then said:
“From a grave your family should never have opened.”
