CHAPTER FIVE

NADIA'S POV

I play the voicemail on speaker.

Dara's voice fills the hallway and I listen to my sister — my sister who brings Miles dinosaur crackers and reads him to sleep — threaten to sell my son's existence to a tabloid like it's a business decision. Her voice is steady. Practiced. Like she rehearsed it before she called.

She says she knows Ezra came this morning. She says she has been watching this situation for five years, and she knows how it ends for people like her if people like Ezra get involved. She says she has contacts at two publications who have been interested in Ezra Cole's personal life since his company went public last year. And then she says the part that makes me want to sit down on the floor.

She says Miles deserves stability. That she did what she did six years ago to protect me. That Gerald Cole would have destroyed my life, and she saw it before I did. And that if Ezra is back now, the same thing will happen, and she will do whatever she has to do to stop it.

The voicemail ends.

"She thinks she's protecting you," Ezra says.

"Don't." I put my hand up. "Don't analyze her right now."

I think about Dara at my kitchen table last Tuesday, helping Miles with a dinosaur puzzle, laughing at something he said, staying for dinner because she always stays for dinner on Tuesdays.

I think about forty-three thousand dollars.

"She didn't use it," I say. "The money. She would have told me. She would have had something to show for it." I look at Ezra. "Your father paid her forty-three thousand dollars, and she sat on it. Why?"

"Guilt," he says. "Or fear. It doesn't change what she did."

"I know that."

I go back inside. Ezra follows. I sat at the kitchen table. He sits across from me. For a moment, we're just two people trying to figure out the next move, and it feels bizarrely like six years ago when we used to sit at his kitchen table and work through problems together. He was always good at that. Calm, methodical.

I hated how much I missed that after I left.

"She can't actually do much," Ezra says. "If she goes to the press and I get ahead of it first, her leverage disappears. Publications want exclusives. If I release a statement before she places her story, she has nothing to sell."

"You want to go public."

"I want to control the narrative before someone else does."

"Ezra." I look at him. "Miles doesn't know yet. You want to make a press statement about a son who doesn't know you're his father?"

He stops. I watch the strategy collapse against the reality of a five-year-old on a couch who has no idea his entire life is being discussed at this table.

"You're right," he says.

"We can't move on Dara's timeline," I say. "We can't move on your PR timeline. We move on to Miles's timeline. That's the only one that matters."

"Agreed. But we need to buy time."

"How?"

"I call Dara directly. Tonight."

I shake my head. "She'll see that as a threat."

"I know people who use leverage," he says. "You don't match it. You remove the incentive. If I tell her I'm not here to take Miles from you, that I'm not here to disrupt anyone's life — she has no reason to go to the press."

"And if she does it anyway?"

"She loves Miles. She's not going to blow up his life for a story. She's scared and cornered and doing what cornered people do."

I hate that he's right.

"If you call her tonight she'll know we're talking," I say. "She'll feel like it's two against one."

"Isn't it?"

I look at him. He says it simply, not as a power move. Just as a fact. And I realize that, for the first time in five years, I am not handling something alone. That there is someone across this table with more resources and a clearer head and a vested interest in the same outcome.

It should feel like relief. Parts of it do. Other parts felt like losing ground. I didn't know I was still holding.

"I'll call her," I say. "Not you. Me. I'll tell her I know about the money. I'll tell her that if she goes to anyone, she loses Miles. Not to a court — she loses him because I will never let her near him again." I keep my voice steady. "That's the only thing that will actually stop her."

"Will you follow through on it?" he asks. "If she calls your bluff?"

"She's my sister," I say. "But Miles is my son. Yes. I'll follow through."

He nods.

"Okay. You call Dara. I'll hold off on anything in public until you tell me how it goes." He stands. "But Nadia — this has a short window. My board doesn't know about Miles. My investors don't. The acquisition lawyers have already seen your HR file. I can't buy indefinite time."

"How long do we have?"

"Two weeks. Maybe three."

Two weeks to tell my son he has a father. Two weeks to figure out what that means for the life I have held together with both hands for five years.

He picks up his coat and walks to the door. I follow.

He pauses at the door frame and turns back once.

"For what it's worth," he says quietly. "What did you do for my company six years ago? Leaving the way you did." He looks at me directly. "You didn't have to do that."

"I know."

"I would have chosen you."

It lands like something I have needed to hear for five years and also like something I cannot afford to feel right now. I hold it away from me at arm's length.

"Good night, Ezra," I say.

He leaves.

I close the door. I stand with my back against it for thirty seconds. Then I pick up my phone and dial Dara's number, and she picks up on the second ring like she's been holding the phone in her hand this whole time.

"Nadia—" she starts.

"Don't," I say. "Just listen."

She goes quiet.

"I know about the forty-three thousand dollars," I say. "I know about all of it. And I need you to understand something before you do anything else." I pause. "If you go near a single journalist, if you make one call, send one message — I will take Miles and I will move, and you will never find us."

Silence.

Then Dara says, very quietly, something I did not expect.

"He already knows, Nadia. About Miles. He's known for longer than you think."

My blood runs cold.

"Who?" I say. "Who are you talking about?"

"Gerald's lawyer," she says. "He's been watching you for two years. And he doesn't work for Ezra.”