Chapter 3
Grant nodded.
“I know.”
A gust of wind lifted the edge of Lily’s blanket.
Grant instinctively reached forward.
Then stopped before touching it.
He lowered his hand.
That small gesture affected me more than I expected.
“May I ask something?”
I waited.
“Are they healthy?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders loosened slightly.
“They’re doing very well.”
“Were you… were you okay?”
“I had good doctors.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I met his eyes.
“I wasn’t alone.”
Nora appeared from the café at that moment.
She took in the scene instantly.
Grant.
Me.
The stroller.
Her expression became guarded.
“Claire?”
“I’m okay.”
Grant looked at her.
“Nora.”
“Grant.”
There was no warmth.
No hostility either.
Only distance.
Nora walked to my side.
Grant looked at the triplets again.
“Can I see them?”
“You are seeing them.”
He flinched.
“I mean someday.”
I understood what he was asking.
Not to hold them now.
Not to claim them.
Only whether there might be a someday.
“I don’t know.”
Grant nodded slowly.
“That’s fair.”
He reached into his jacket.
For one second I thought he was giving me a business card, which would have been such a Grant thing to do that I almost laughed.
Instead, he took out his phone.
“My number.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t need it.”
“In case you ever decide—”
“You left me with a number once before.”
He stopped.
Then put the phone away.
“You’re right.”
Nora touched the stroller handle.
“We should go inside.”
I nodded.
Grant stepped aside.
I pushed the stroller past him.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
“I am sorry.”
I looked back.
He did not elaborate.
No excuses.
No explanation about family history.
No attempt to make his regret equal to my experience.
Just four words.
I am sorry.
It was the first thing he had said that afternoon that I completely believed.
But belief was not forgiveness.
And forgiveness was not trust.
I turned back toward the café.
—
That evening, after the babies were asleep, I opened the drawer where I had stored the returned letter.
I placed it on the kitchen table.
The postal label still read DELIVERY REFUSED.
I examined it differently now.
There was a small office-routing sticker beneath the postal label.
BLACKWELL BRIDGE EXECUTIVE SERVICES.
I had never noticed it.
I took a photograph and sent it to Grant.
My first message to him in nearly a year.
Did your office receive this?
His reply came less than a minute later.
I don’t know. May I investigate?
I stared at those words.
May I.
Not I will.
He was asking.
Yes, I typed.
Twenty minutes later, Grant called.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
“Hello?”
His voice was controlled, but something beneath it had shifted.
“Claire, I found the intake record.”
I sat straighter.
“And?”
“Your letter reached Blackwell Bridge.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Then why was it returned?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I heard papers moving.
“But the person logged as receiving it was the same employee who processed the anonymous packet.”
A quiet unease moved through me.
“Who?”
“Her name was Amelia Shaw. She left the company eight months ago.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because she contacted Evelyn two weeks ago.”
I stood.
“Why would she contact Evelyn?”
Grant went silent.
“Grant?”
“When Evelyn asked for the independent review, she started tracing how the original packet entered the company.”
My pulse quickened.
“And Amelia knew something?”
“She said she did.”
“What?”
Grant took a breath.
“She claimed she was instructed to return anything from you unopened.”
“By you?”
“No.”
“Then by whom?”
Another silence.
This one longer.
“Grant.”
“When Amelia left the company, she kept copies of the intake instructions.”
“And whose instructions were they?”
His answer came quietly.
“Someone who had access to my executive account.”
I stared at the returned envelope on my kitchen table.
For a year I had believed Grant had rejected my letter.
Now it appeared someone else had decided he would never read it.
But the strangest part came next.
“Claire,” Grant said, “there’s something else.”
“What?”
“The instructions were issued the morning after you left my penthouse.”
My hand went cold around the phone.
Grant continued.
“At that point, almost no one knew you were pregnant.”
The apartment became very quiet.
From the nursery came the soft hum of the white-noise machine.
I looked toward the hallway where my three children slept safely in their cribs.
“Then how did whoever sent those instructions know I might contact you?”
“I don’t know,” Grant said.
May you like
This time, I believed that too.
And for the first time since I walked out of his penthouse, I realized the story of what had happened between us might have begun long before the night I told him I was pregnant.
