Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO RAN
Victoria made it three steps.
Nathan caught her wrist before she reached the hall.
“Let go.”
“No.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“You were about to hit a four-year-old.”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“She is not your daughter.”
Grace whispered, “DNA test.”
Lily had crawled into Grace’s lap.
He did not touch the child.
“What’s your name?”
“Lily Grace Bennett.”
“Bennett?”
“My mommy’s name.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
Grace’s head snapped toward her.
“I called him seventeen times.”
She said, “That was years before we were together.”
“No. It was the month your families announced the Cole-Mercer development partnership.”
His father’s company had merged major assets with Victoria’s father’s construction group exactly five years earlier.
The same month Grace vanished.
Nathan pulled out his phone.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Think about what this looks like.”
“My fiancée attacked my employee and a child.”
“She broke into my study.”
Grace said, “I was cleaning.”
“She stole documents.”
“I found my daughter’s name.”
“What documents?”
“In your desk. A trust amendment.”
Nathan felt the room tilt.
Lily’s name should not have existed in any family document.
Nobody was supposed to know she existed.
“Where is it?”
Grace reached inside her torn apron and pulled out a folded copy.
THE COLE FAMILY DESCENDANT TRUST.
Beneficiaries listed:
Any lawful biological issue of Nathan Cole.
Attached beneath it was a handwritten note.
IF NATHAN LEARNS OF THE CHILD BEFORE THE MERCER CLOSING, THE AGREEMENT FAILS.
Nathan recognized the handwriting.
His father’s attorney.
Victoria had gone pale.
Then Grace said, “That’s why she tried to take it from me.”
“You weren’t trying to scare her.”
“You were trying to stop me from seeing that paper.”
May you like
Sirens sounded outside.
And Nathan realized someone had called police before he had.
