Chapter 3
But beneath it was grief.
“Why tell me now?”
“Because Daniel’s name came up again.”
“How?”
My father looked toward the window.
“Someone called me this morning.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they say?”
“They asked whether I had ever told you why Adrian really wanted those records.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“And what did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Dad, what records?”
He reached inside his coat.
For a second, I thought he might produce documents.
Instead, he placed an old brass key on the table.
“I didn’t give Adrian everything.”
I looked at the key.
“What is that?”
“A safe-deposit box.”
“Yours?”
My father shook his head.
“Your mother’s.”
The penthouse was quiet when I returned.
The brass key felt impossibly heavy inside my handbag.
My father had wanted to come with me.
I refused.
Not because I had forgiven him.
Not because I trusted Adrian more.
Because I needed one truth at a time.
Marco greeted me near the elevator.
“Mr. Valentino is in his office.”
“Good.”
“Mrs. Valentino—”
“Elena.”
He blinked.
“If I’m apparently going to be dragged into an eight-year-old financial mystery, I think we can use first names.”
For the first time since I had known him, Marco smiled.
“Fair enough.”
I walked toward Adrian’s office.
The door was partly open.
I knocked once.
He looked up from his desk.
Relief crossed his face before he hid it.
“You’re back.”
“We need to talk.”
He took one look at me and closed his laptop.
“What happened?”
“My father told me about Daniel Mercer.”
Adrian became still.
“He told me you contacted him months before we met.”
Nothing.
“He told me you were looking for records.”
Still nothing.
“And he told me something else.”
I closed the door behind me.
“You had already agreed to clear his debts before you proposed marriage.”
Adrian slowly stood.
That was answer enough.
“It’s true.”
The words struck harder than I expected.
I laughed once, without humor.
“Apparently everyone knew the terms of my marriage except me.”
“Elena.”
“Did you know what my father told me?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m telling you the truth.”
I stared at him.
“You’re three years late.”
Pain flickered across his face.
I almost missed it.
Almost.
He came around the desk but stopped several feet away.
“I did not make your father’s financial rescue conditional on marrying you.”
“Then why did you propose?”
His silence answered nothing.
I shook my head.
“This is exactly what you always do.”
“What?”
“You give me one piece of the truth and expect me to be grateful for it.”
“I’m trying to explain.”
“Then explain.”
He looked toward the windows.
For perhaps the first time, Adrian seemed to struggle not with what to say, but whether he could say it.
“Daniel Mercer worked for my father when I was twenty-one.”
I waited.
“My father discovered that money was moving through several companies without proper documentation. Daniel claimed the transfers were legitimate.”
“Were they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You still don’t know?”
“Some records disappeared.”
My fingers tightened around my bag.
“What does this have to do with my father?”
“Daniel left Valentino Group. Two years later, he began working for Thomas.”
“And then my father’s company collapsed.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think Daniel caused it?”
“I think someone used your father’s company to move money.”
My stomach turned.
“And you thought the missing records might prove it.”
“Yes.”
“So you approached Dad.”
“Yes.”
“And then you met me.”
His gaze settled on mine.
“Yes.”
The room went very quiet.
“Why propose?”
Adrian drew a slow breath.
“At first, I thought the connection between our families might put you at risk financially. Your father was being pursued by creditors. There were lawsuits. People were asking questions about assets.”
“That still doesn’t explain marriage.”
“No.”
“Then explain it.”
He looked at me in a way I had never seen before.
Unprotected.
“I proposed because I wanted you here.”
I stared.
“That makes even less sense.”
“I know.”
“You barely knew me.”
“I had met you before.”
My heart skipped.
“When?”
“Years earlier.”
“I would remember you.”
“You didn’t know who I was.”
I frowned.
He walked to a cabinet along the wall.
From the lowest drawer, he removed a thin folder.
“I was twenty-five. My mother was undergoing treatment at St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
I remembered the hospital.
My mother had volunteered there.
“She hated hospitals,” Adrian continued. “Especially being alone in them.”
His voice changed when he spoke about his mother.
“She spent months going in and out. One afternoon, I arrived and found her laughing for the first time in weeks.”
He opened the folder.
Inside was a photograph.
He handed it to me.
My breath caught.
My mother stood in the center of the picture.
Younger.
Smiling.
Beside her was another woman I recognized from photographs in the penthouse.
Lucia Valentino.
Adrian’s mother.
And sitting on the edge of Lucia’s hospital bed, holding an open sketchbook, was me.
Seventeen years old.
I remembered that afternoon.
Not the woman’s name.
Not the connection.
Only my mother asking me to come with her because one of her friends was having a difficult day.
I had drawn ridiculous portraits of everyone in the room.
My throat tightened.
“You were there?”
“In the doorway.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“You never came inside.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My mother looked happy.”
His expression softened with the memory.
“I didn’t want to interrupt.”
I lowered the photograph.
“So seven years later, you recognized me?”
“Immediately.”
“And that is why you proposed?”
“Not entirely.”
Frustration returned.
“Adrian.”
“My mother trusted yours.”
That stopped me.
“They knew each other well?”
“Well enough that my mother kept correspondence from her.”
“What kind of correspondence?”
“I don’t know. Most of it disappeared after my mother died.”
There was that word again.
Disappeared.
“Daniel?”
“Possibly.”
“And you believed my father had something your mother left behind.”
“I believed your mother might have given Thomas copies of documents before she died.”
My hand instinctively moved toward my handbag.
The key.
Adrian noticed the movement.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“What is it?”
I hesitated.
Three years ago, I would have hidden it.
Not because I was deceptive.
Because secrecy had been the only form of control I felt I possessed.
But standing there, I realized something had changed.
Not enough for trust.
Enough for a decision.
I removed the brass key.
“My father says my mother had a safe-deposit box.”
Adrian stared at it.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“He said he didn’t give you everything.”
Something almost like relief crossed Adrian’s face.
I frowned.
“You’re not angry?”
“Why would I be?”
“Because he kept information from you.”
“So did I.”
The simple answer unsettled me.
He returned the photograph to the folder.
“I won’t ask you for the key.”
“You won’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to you.”
I searched his face for some sign of strategy.
I found none.
“If there are records in the box connected to your company—”
“They are still yours.”
“And if they prove something serious?”
“Then you decide what happens next.”
I stared at the key in my palm.
For years, other people had decided what my future required.
My father.
Adrian.
Fear.
Money.
Silence.
Now the man I had blamed for taking away my choice was giving one back to me.
It did not erase the past.
But it mattered.
“I want to open it tomorrow,” I said.
Adrian nodded.
“I’ll arrange—”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I’ll arrange it.”
A pause.
Then he inclined his head.
“All right.”
“I want you there.”
Surprise showed clearly this time.
“Why?”
“Because whatever is in that box concerns both our families.”
His gaze held mine.
“And because I’m tired of people telling me pieces of the truth when they think I’m ready.”
“I won’t do that again.”
I almost smiled.
“That sounds dangerously close to a promise.”
“It is one.”
I looked toward the photograph.
“Can I keep this tonight?”
“Of course.”
I picked it up.
At the door, I stopped.
“Adrian?”
“Yes?”
“When you said you wanted me here…”
He waited.
“Did you mean because of the records?”
His expression changed.
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
I didn’t know what to say.
Neither did he.
So I left.
But that night, for the first time in three years, I didn’t close my bedroom door all the way.
The next morning, Adrian was waiting near the elevator.
Not with six security guards.
Not with lawyers.
Just Marco.
I held my mother’s key in my hand.
May you like
“You ready?” Adrian asked.
“No.”
