What The Mother Knew

Elena Cross lived in a townhouse on East 72nd Street that had been in the family since 1894.

Damien grew up in this house. He knew which stairs creaked. He knew which windows stuck in winter. He knew the scent of his mother's library, leather and old paper and the faint trace of the Chanel she had worn since she was nineteen.

She was waiting for him in the drawing room.

A fire burned in the grate. A decanter of brandy sat on the side table. Two glasses. His mother never poured brandy unless the conversation was going to hurt.

"Sit down, Damien."

He sat.

"Mother, what is going on."

She handed him a glass. Sat across from him. Folded her hands in her lap.

"Before I tell you what I am about to tell you, I need you to promise me something."

"I am not promising anything."

"Damien."

"I am not promising anything until I know what this is."

Elena took a long drink. Set the glass down. Looked at him.

"Three years ago," she said. "You divorced a woman who did not cheat on you."

The room went very still.

"Mother."

"Let me finish."

"We are not doing this."

"Damien. Listen to me. Six months ago, I was going through the files of a charity I co chair. I found a wire transfer. A very large wire transfer. From Vanessa's trust fund, dated two weeks before the photos appeared, to a man named Marcus Greer."

Marcus.

The investigator who had delivered the evidence.

The world tilted.

"Mother, stop."

"I did not stop. I kept looking. I hired my own investigator. The photos were doctored, Damien. Every single one. The text messages were fabricated. The hotel receipts were real but they were for a different woman. A paid actress. Her name was Elise Monroe and she died last year of an overdose and I have her signed confession in a safe in this house."

Damien could not breathe.

"Why."

"Why what?"

"Why are you telling me this now?"

His mother looked at him for a long time.

"Because I met a woman at your gala last night. And I met her again this morning. And I am almost certain, though I do not have proof, that she is Aria."

The brandy glass slipped out of his hand. It did not break. It rolled across the carpet. Brandy soaked into the wool.

"That is not possible."

"The scar on her wrist, Damien. From the bracelet that broke at your wedding."

"That is not possible."

"The necklace she wears. That is her own design. The one you had made for her."

"That is not possible."

"Damien."

"Stop saying her name. Stop."

His mother stood. Walked to him. Put her hand on his shoulder. He was shaking. He did not know he was shaking until she touched him.

"She is alive," his mother said. "She came back. And if I am right, my son, if I am right about who she is, then she is here to make you pay for what we did to her. And I cannot blame her. And neither can you."

He stood. Walked out of the drawing room. Walked through the foyer. Walked out the front door. Stood on the front steps of his childhood home and looked up at a sky that did not have any stars because the city lights had killed them all.

Aria.

His wife.

His wife.

He had divorced her. He had thrown her out in the rain. He had believed Vanessa. He had believed Vanessa and he had let his mother push the papers across the table and he had asked if the baby was his.

The baby.

The baby.

Seraphina Kane had a daughter.

He remembered the way Aria had looked at him that night. The way her hand had drifted to her stomach when she said the word pregnant. He had not let himself see it. He had trained his brain for two years after the divorce to not see it. Every time the memory tried to surface he had drowned it in whiskey or work or Vanessa's thigh against his in the back of a limo.

He had been running from this moment for three years.

And now it had caught him on the steps of his mother's house with brandy on his shirt and his whole body shaking like a man twice his age.

He thought of the photo in his drawer. Aria laughing on their wedding day. The necklace at her throat. The way her hand rested on his chest.

He thought of Seraphina at the gala. The same throat. The same collarbone. The same tilt of her chin when she was trying not to cry.

He thought of Seraphina in his office. The way she had gone still when he held out the hair clip. The way she had closed her hand around it without reading the engraving, because she already knew what it said.

He thought of every single moment she had let him close, and realized she had been memorizing his tells the entire time. Because she already knew them. Because she had married them.

His mother appeared in the doorway behind him.

"Damien. Where are you going?"

"I have to see her."

"Damien."

"I have to see her."

"Listen to me. Listen. If you go there tonight, if you pound on that door like the man you were three years ago, she is going to close it on you forever. If she is who I think she is, she has spent three years rebuilding herself out of the wreckage of what you did. Do not crash into her like a wrecking ball. Please."

"Mother."

"Damien. I am asking you."

"She has my daughter. I will not wait until morning. I will not wait another hour. I have lost three years with her already. I do not care if she slams the door in my face. I do not care if she never opens it again. I am going."

Elena stepped back. Wiped her eyes.

"Then go."

His driver pulled up. He opened the door. Got in. Sat there.

"Where to, sir?"

"The Plaza."

"Sir."

"The Plaza. Now."

The car pulled into traffic.

He stared out the window at a city he had thought he understood.

He had understood nothing.