Chapter 2
“I know.”
I glanced up sharply.
“How?”
“There are sketchbooks in the cabinet beside the balcony.”
Heat touched my face.
“You looked through them?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know what’s inside?”
“Because sometimes when I come home, you’re asleep on the sofa with a pencil in your hand.”
I stared at him.
I had never known he saw those nights.
“I studied illustration before my father’s business collapsed,” I said.
“You stopped.”
“I had other things to think about.”
Adrian was quiet.
Then he asked, “Do you miss it?”
The answer rose instantly.
“Yes.”
I expected him to suggest buying supplies, hiring a teacher, arranging a studio—solving the problem the way wealthy people solved problems.
Instead, he said, “Then perhaps you should decide what returning to it looks like.”
Not I can arrange it.
Not I’ll take care of it.
You should decide.
Something in me loosened.
“I might.”
“You should.”
I gave him a suspicious look.
“That sounded dangerously close to an order.”
“It’s a professional weakness.”
Before I could answer, Marco appeared in the doorway.
His usual composure looked slightly strained.
“Mr. Valentino.”
Adrian immediately changed.
The softness vanished.
“What is it?”
“We traced the archive access.”
“And?”
Marco glanced at me.
Adrian noticed.
“She stays.”
Those two words sent a strange warmth through me.
Marco entered.
“The account used to access the files belonged to someone who left the company eight years ago.”
“Name?”
Marco’s hesitation lasted only a second.
“Daniel Mercer.”
My fork slipped against the plate.
Both men looked at me.
I knew that name.
Not well.
But enough.
“He worked for my father,” I said.
Adrian’s expression changed.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I was a teenager. He handled accounting.”
Marco and Adrian exchanged a look.
“What?” I asked.
Marco remained silent.
Adrian answered.
“Daniel Mercer also worked for my father.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“When?”
“Before he worked for yours.”
I thought back to the man I remembered only vaguely—silver glasses, kind eyes, a habit of giving me chocolate coins at Christmas.
“Where is he now?”
“We don’t know,” Marco said.
“When did anyone last see him?”
Adrian’s gaze hardened.
“Eight years ago.”
Eight years.
The number felt important.
I just didn’t know why.
By noon, I needed air.
Adrian had disappeared into his office with lawyers and security staff.
Before he went, he asked Marco to arrange a driver for me.
I almost refused out of habit.
Then I realized refusal would only mean remaining in the penthouse.
So I went somewhere I had not visited in almost four years.
The Harrington Arts Center occupied an old brick building between a bookstore and a narrow café.
I had taken evening illustration classes there at nineteen.
Walking inside felt like meeting a younger version of myself.
The smell of paper, paint, and coffee hit me immediately.
A woman behind the front desk looked up.
Then her eyes widened.
“Elena?”
I froze.
“Nadia?”
She came around the desk and hugged me.
For the first time that day, I laughed without thinking.
Nadia Collins had been my closest friend during art school. We had lost touch gradually after my father’s financial problems began.
Then the wedding happened.
Then everything became complicated.
She pulled back.
“Where have you been?”
“Living badly, apparently.”
She laughed.
“You vanished.”
“I know.”
“I sent messages.”
“I know.”
“I was offended.”
“I know.”
“I eventually decided you had joined a secret royal family.”
“Close. Billionaire husband.”
Nadia’s expression softened.
“I heard.”
Of course she had.
Everyone had.
The Valentino marriage had briefly been financial-page gossip.
Then Adrian’s careful privacy buried it.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
The question was simple.
My answer wasn’t.
“I’m trying to figure that out.”
She nodded toward the studios.
“Come on.”
We spent almost two hours talking.
Not about Adrian at first.
About art.
About instructors we remembered.
About Nadia’s work designing children’s books.
About the mural she was helping paint at a nearby hospital.
Then she pushed a blank sketchbook across the table.
“Draw something.”
“I’m rusty.”
“Good.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It means you have something to learn again.”
I looked at the white page.
My hand felt awkward around the pencil.
Then I began.
A window.
Rain.
A man kneeling on a marble floor.
I stopped.
Nadia leaned over.
“Interesting.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
She smiled.
My phone rang.
My father.
I hadn’t spoken to him in almost two weeks.
I answered.
“Dad?”
“Elena.”
His voice sounded wrong.
Tense.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Downtown.”
A pause.
“Are you with Adrian?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Dad, what happened?”
“I need to see you.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Why?”
“Because there’s something I should have told you three years ago.”
We met at a small café six blocks from the art center.
My father was already there.
Thomas Hale looked older than fifty-seven.
The collapse of his business had aged him quickly. Even after Adrian settled his financial problems, the guilt stayed behind.
He stood when I approached.
“Your foot.”
“It’s nothing.”
He looked relieved, then immediately nervous again.
I sat.
“What did you need to tell me?”
“Elena—”
“No long introduction. Please.”
He lowered himself into the chair.
For a moment, he stared at his coffee.
“Did Adrian mention Daniel Mercer?”
Every muscle in my body seemed to tighten.
“How do you know?”
My father closed his eyes briefly.
“That means yes.”
“What does Daniel have to do with Adrian?”
“More than I understood at the time.”
“Dad.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“When my company started failing, I thought it was because I had expanded too quickly.”
“That’s what you told me.”
“That’s what I believed.”
“Believed?”
He nodded slowly.
“Daniel handled most of our financial accounts. After he disappeared, I discovered irregular transfers.”
My mouth went dry.
“Did he steal from you?”
“I never proved that.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I did. Quietly. There wasn’t enough evidence. The transfers were made with authorized credentials.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
He looked ashamed.
“I had trusted him.”
“And then Adrian appeared.”
My father’s face changed.
There it was.
The thing he had called me here to confess.
“Adrian contacted me several months before you knew anything about him.”
I stared.
“Months?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He asked questions about Daniel.”
My thoughts rushed backward through three years of memories.
“You told me Adrian heard about your financial situation through business contacts.”
“That was partly true.”
“Partly?”
“Elena, I was desperate.”
“So you lied to me.”
“I left things out.”
“That is a very elegant way of saying it.”
He flinched.
I hated that I had hurt him.
But I was too tired of edited truths to apologize.
“What did Adrian want?”
“Records. Old ledgers. Emails. Anything Daniel handled.”
“And you gave them to him?”
“Copies.”
“Then he offered to settle your debts?”
“Yes.”
“And asked me to marry him.”
My father looked away.
That single movement told me there was more.
“Dad.”
He swallowed.
“Adrian’s proposal was not explained to me the way I explained it to you.”
I stopped breathing for a moment.
“What does that mean?”
“He never said marriage was payment.”
The sounds of the café faded around me.
I heard cups, distant conversation, the hiss of steamed milk.
But none of it felt real.
“You told me it was his condition.”
“I know.”
“You said he would help you if I married him.”
“I know.”
“Was that true?”
My father’s eyes filled with regret.
“He had already agreed to help me.”
I pushed back from the table.
The chair scraped the floor.
“Elena.”
“Before?”
“Yes.”
“Before the proposal?”
“Yes.”
My face went cold.
“How long before?”
“Several weeks.”
I stood.
My father reached toward me but stopped himself.
“I thought marriage would secure your future.”
“You thought?”
“I had lost everything. Adrian was offering stability, protection, a life where you would never have to worry about money again.”
“You let me believe I had no choice.”
“I was afraid you would refuse.”
I stared at him.
“Maybe I would have.”
“I know.”
“That was my decision.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
May you like
And suddenly I saw him not as the father who had once seemed capable of fixing everything, but as a frightened man who had convinced himself that security justified choosing for someone else.
My anger remained.
