Chapter 7

Nathan bent down to the little boy, smiling, touching his face–a perfect miniature of his own.

Cooper chattered excitedly about preschool while Claire looked on with a gentle smile. The picture–perfect Greenwich family.

When Cooper reached up for a hug. Nathan stepped back smoothly.

“Cooper, we’ve discussed this,”

The little boy’s lower lip trembled. “Why can all my friends at Greenwich Academy hug their daddies but I can’t? I don’t even drink milk anymore!”

Nathan gave Claire a cold look

She quickly stepped in, her voice soft. “Daddy has to go back to work, sweetheart. Don’t fuss.”

“Why does Daddy always work at night?”

Claire hesitated, then whispered to Nathan: “Can’t you stay? Just this once?”

His face darkened.

“If she comes to the office again, you leave the building immediately. If you appear in front of her again – -accidentally or not you know the consequences.”

He checked his Patek Philippe, pulled on his Brunello coat, and strode out.

Minutes later, when the living room cleared, I fled.

I drove blindly through the snow, my Cayenne cutting through the gathering storm

Ten years ago, on another snowy day.

saw him- a thin

knocking

just shook his head, silently gathering his scattered merchandise

hands.

poor to wear

smiling. “How much

mine. “Eight for ladies, ten for

Chapter 7

of each. You choose.”

handed me pink and black

the black ones,” I

1

we drove away,

straight as an

saw his potential, backed his education, sent

been married five years. Cooper looks about three,

got pregnant a year

after Nathan first mentioned her

after Mom died at Sloan Kettering-

wheel, sobbing like a child.

twenty–eight, my life was charmed.

who remained friends- Mom the CEO, Dad the Columbia professor both showering me with

worshipped me. Every look, every gesture screamed

doctors said my PCOS would make conception difficult, Nathan just joked that

himself.

meant more to him than life itself.

But all along-

drowning in

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