Chapter 11: Innocent Questions

The morning after Mikel's texts, I woke up and Emma wasn't in her bed. I freaked out for a second, then heard her chatting away in the kitchen, all excited like she was having a serious make-believe conversation.

I threw on my robe and went to the kitchen, stopping at the door to listen.

"And then you could teach me to drive!" Emma was saying, drawing patterns in her eggs with her fork. "Not now, 'cause I'm only five, but when I'm bigger. Like, six?" She stopped, tilting her head like she was listening to someone. "Oh, okay. Sixteen it is! That's, like, super old."

She was talking to the empty chair across from her – the same one Mikel always sat in when we were married.

"Emma?" I walked into the kitchen, trying to sound casual. "Who are you talking to, sweetie?"

She looked up at me with her dark eyes, so much like her dad's. She didn't seem embarrassed at all. "My maybe-daddy. I was telling him about school and my friends and how I'm learning to read chapter books."

My chest got tight. "Your maybe-daddy?"

"The man from my dreams," she said, going back to her eggs. "He has dark hair, like me, and he looks sad when he looks at me. He wants to know everything, but he can't ask 'cause he lives far away."

I sat down next to her – not in the empty chair. I was trying to take it all in. "Emma, dreams aren't real. They're just stuff your brain makes up when you're asleep."

"I know that, Mommy," she said, like she was explaining something super obvious to someone slow. "But maybe-daddy isn't just in my dreams. He's in my thoughts when I'm awake, too. Like, when something funny happens at school, I think about telling him. When I draw, I make them for him, even though I can't give them to him."

She jumped up and got her backpack, pulling out a folder full of drawings. "See? These are all for my maybe-daddy."

I opened the folder, my hands shaking. Inside were tons of drawings, all with the same tall guy with dark hair standing next to Emma and me. In some, he was pushing Emma on a swing. In others, he was reading her stories. In one, we were all baking cookies, with flour all over us.

But it was the last drawing that got to me.

Emma had drawn a man kneeling down to her, with his arms open. Above his head, she'd written in her five-year-old writing: "I LOVE YOU TOO DADDY." And at the bottom: "FOR WHEN YOU COME HOME."

"Emma," I whispered, my voice cracking. "How long have you been doing these?"

"Since school started," she said, like it was no big deal. "Mrs. Patterson said we should draw our families, but I told her I didn't know what my daddy looked like. So she said I could draw what I think he looks like in my heart."

What she thinks he looks like in her heart. My kid had been building a whole relationship with a dad she'd never met, making up love for a man who'd been gone her whole life.

"And this one?" I held up the drawing that said "I love you too."

Emma's face lit up. "That's for when he finds us and tells me he loves me. I want to be ready to tell him I love him back."

The way she just knew, like it was totally going to happen, that her dad would find us and love her shattered something inside me. This wasn't just imagination. It was hope, real and strong and heartbreaking.

"What if—" I started, then stopped. How could I ask a five-year-old what she'd do if her dad never showed up?

But Emma seemed to get it anyway. "He will," she said, totally confident. "Maybe-daddies always find their little girls. It's, like, a rule."

I spent breakfast watching Emma talk about her chats with her maybe-daddy, making up stories about him teaching her to ride a bike, helping with homework, and taking her to the zoo. She'd built a whole fantasy relationship, so real and loving it beat any real one.

When Lucas got there to take Emma to school, I pulled him aside.

"We need to talk," I said seriously. "Tonight, after Emma's asleep."

He looked at my face and nodded. "How bad is it?"

"She's in love with a dad she's never even met."

At work, I tried to focus on reports and stuff, but Emma's drawings kept popping into my head. Every line, every tiny detail, every bit of love for a man who was a stranger.

My assistant buzzed in. "Mrs. Romano? Emma's school is on line two. Says it's about the family tree project."

The family tree. Of course.

"This is Izabela Romano," I said, already dreading it.

"Mrs. Romano, this is Janet Patterson, Emma's teacher. I wanted to talk about Emma's family tree before the presentation next week."

"Is there a problem?"

"Not exactly, but..." Mrs. Patterson sounded careful, like teachers do when things are complicated. "Emma made a very detailed family tree. She has both sides – the Romanos and what she calls 'the Daddy side.'"

My blood went cold. "What do you mean, the daddy side?"

"She's somehow researched the Sterling family. She knows names, dates, even what they do. Mrs. Romano, where did she get all this information?"

I closed my eyes, realizing what had happened. "She can use the internet on her tablet for educational games."

"She's been researching her father's family. She knows he has a sister, that his parents are deceased, that he runs a tech company. She even found photographs."

Photographs. My kid had been cyber-stalking her own dad, learning about him like other kids learn about dinosaurs.

"Mrs. Romano, Emma wants to present her family tree to the class, with all the information about her father and his family. She's really excited about it. But since he's not... present, I wanted to make sure it was appropriate."

I thought of Emma standing there, bragging about the dad she'd found online but never met, making up stories about family that only existed in her head.

"I'll take care of it," I said quietly. "Thanks for calling."

After I hung up, I sat there looking at the city, trying to figure out how trying to protect Emma had led to this. In trying to keep her from getting hurt by her dad's abandonment, I'd created a situation where she was building a fantasy life around a man who might never be there.

My phone buzzed with another text from Mikel: *I know you're angry. I know I've been terrible to you. But Emma needs to know I exist.*

Immediately, another one: *Victoria told me she asked about me. I've been asking about her every day for five years.*

And then: *I have a room in my house that's painted pink. It has toys I bought hoping she'd visit someday. It has books I've read so I could read them to her if I ever got the chance.*

I stared at the texts, hating how they affected me. Mikel Sterling, the man who divorced me in the hospital, had a bedroom ready for the daughter he'd given up.

My assistant buzzed again. "Mrs. Romano? Lucas is here to see you. Says it's urgent."

Lucas came in with his phone out, looking like things had just gotten worse.

"Bella, you need to see this," he said, handing me his phone.

It was a local news site with a headline that made me freeze: "TECH MOGUL'S SECRET DAUGHTER: MIKEL STERLING'S FIVE-YEAR SEARCH FOR MISSING CHILD."

There were photos with the article – recent ones of Emma at school, older ones of me when I was pregnant, and a heartbreaking one of Mikel looking defeated outside some lawyer's office.

"How?" I whispered.

"Someone leaked it," Lucas said, looking grim. "The investigator we caught yesterday, maybe. The story's everywhere now."

I scrolled through the article, getting more panicked. They had everything – the hospital incident, the disappearance, even speculation about Emma's trust fund and the Romano family connections. My daughter's life was being dissected by strangers.

"There's more," Lucas said. "Emma's school is getting bombarded with calls from reporters. They want to do interviews, take photos. They want to know about 'the secret heiress.'"

My phone started ringing constantly. Sarah's voice came through the intercom: "Mrs. Romano, the media is calling nonstop. They're asking for statements about the Sterling family connection."

This was what I'd been trying to prevent for five years. Emma's childhood, her privacy, her safety – all of it was being destroyed by news I'd never wanted to exist.

My phone buzzed with another text from Mikel: *I didn't leak this. I would never do that to Emma. We need to talk.*

And then: *She's going to see the news. She's going to have questions. She needs answers from us, not from strangers.*

He was right. Emma would come home and see her face on the news, her story being told by people who didn't even know her. She'd learn what happened when she was born from reporters, not from me.

I looked at Lucas, seeing my own panic reflected in his eyes. "We need to get Emma out of school. Now."

"Already on it. My security team is picking her up and bringing her to your office instead of home. But Bella, she's going to want to know what's happening. And she's smart enough to figure it out."

Emma. My smart, curious kid who'd been building fantasies about her dad was about to find out that her maybe-daddy was real and had been looking for her for five years.

My phone rang. I knew the number.

"Hello, Mikel," I said, trying to stay calm.

"Bella." He sounded rough, desperate. "I swear, I didn't leak this. I've been trying to protect her this whole time, not expose her."

"It doesn't matter who did it now," I said, watching Lucas pace like a caged animal. "It's out there. Emma's childhood is over."

There was silence. Then: "I'm sorry. God, Bella, I'm so sorry. I never wanted this for her."

"What you want doesn't matter now," I said, but I wasn't as angry as I thought I'd be. I knew he meant it. The man who kept a pink bedroom for a daughter he'd never met wouldn't do this intentionally.

"She's going to want to meet me now," Mikel said quietly. "She's going to see the news and have questions."

He was right. Emma, who'd been researching her dad online and building fantasies about him, was about to find out that her whole story was being broadcast all over the news.