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.

in Mom’s lap in our Mercedes when we saw him- a thin figure shivering in the

knocking over his

his head, silently

hands.

poor

“How

up, those dark eyes meeting mine.

Chapter 7

of each. You choose.”

handed me pink and

I smiled.

1

drove away,

boy stood straight as an

his

years. Cooper looks about three,

got pregnant a year after our wedding.

Nathan first mentioned her

Mom died at Sloan

the steering wheel, sobbing like a child.

life was

Divorced parents who remained friends-

Every

conception difficult, Nathan just joked that meant he’d have me all

himself.

me believe I meant more to him than

But all along-

drowning in grief over

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