Chapter Fourteen

Saffron's POV

I did not move from the bathroom doorway. Nyx stood in front of me in her silk robe, one hand on the frame, her eyes on the pink box in my fingers.

"What are you doing?" she said again. Softer this time.

"Looking at this."

"Why?"

"Because it's sealed."

For one second, no more, something flickered across her face. Then it was gone, and she let out a long breath and laughed, a little breathless, a little embarrassed, a woman caught being silly.

"Oh, that. Saffron." She took it from my hand and turned it over. "That's the spare. I bought a three pack at the pharmacy before I went to the clinic, and I used the first one at home, and then the nurse did the real test. The other two are just sitting there. Honestly, I forgot to throw them out."

"You used it at home."

"Yes."

"Where's the first one?"

"In the trash, obviously." She nodded at the bin. "Do you want to dig through it?"

I looked at the bin. Tissues, a cotton pad, a crumpled receipt. No stick. She watched me look, and her smile stayed perfectly fixed.

"You don't trust me," she said quietly.

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to." Her eyes filled. She was a very good actress. That was her entire profession. "I am carrying your child, and you are going through my trash like a detective. Your mother is downstairs picking out a nursery. I am scared. I haven't slept. And my fiancé stands in the bathroom with a box, looking at me like I'm lying."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you?"

"Yes." The word tasted like ash. "I'm tired. It's been a long day."

She crossed the room and slid her arms around my neck and pressed her cheek against my chest. I stood there. She smelled like vanilla and expensive things. I put one hand on her back because that is what a man does.

"I forgive you," she whispered. "Come to bed."

I went. I lay awake until three listening to her breathe, and a calm, cold, unfamiliar voice in my head said, she did not have to ask what I was holding. She knew exactly what it was the moment she walked in.

I found my mother the next morning at my desk.

Not in the office. In my study at home, at the antique writing desk that had been my grandfather's, sitting in my chair with her gloves folded on the blotter. The shoebox of Isolde's notes was open in front of her. I stopped in the doorway.

"Those are mine."

"They are sentimental trash." She closed the lid. "I wanted to see what sort of man my son has become. It seems he keeps souvenirs."

"Get out of my chair."

"Your temper is unattractive." She rose without hurry and smoothed her skirt. "Saffron. I read the folder."

I went cold.

"The one you left under your blotter last night. You are careless when you are upset. You always were." She tilted her head. "There are two of them, then. Two women claiming to carry my grandchild."

"Mother."

"One has a doctor's note and a heartbeat. The other has a pink box and a great deal of enthusiasm." She said it calmly, as if she were weighing fabric. "I know which one I believe."

"What did you do?"

"I wrote to her. I invited her to tea."

"You what?"

"Today. Three o'clock, the Mirabelle Room." She picked up her gloves. "I intend to be reasonable, though I suspect she will not. Girls like that rarely are."

"Do not go near her."

"I will go wherever I please. The child is a Cole."

I looked at the clock on the wall. It was a quarter to three. I do not remember grabbing my keys.

The traffic was a nightmare. I drove with both hands white on the wheel, cutting between lanes, running a light I had no business running, and all the way my mind kept replaying my mother's voice. I did what was necessary. She had said that once, years ago, about a girlfriend I'd had at university who one day simply stopped answering my calls. I had never asked what the necessary thing was.

By the time I reached the Mirabelle Room it was ten past four.

I parked crooked and ran up the steps. Inside, the pianist was still playing, the waiters were still gliding, and at the window table my mother sat alone with a full cup of tea and a face like carved marble. Across from her stood an empty chair, pushed back. On the white cloth lay an envelope. Untouched.

"Where is she?"

"Gone." My mother did not look up. "You are late, Saffron. As always."

"What did you say to her?"

"I made her a generous offer. She was not wise enough to accept it."

I grabbed the back of the empty chair. "What offer?"

"Two million now. Two million at the birth. The child raised at home, where it belongs." She lifted her tea. "She refused. I have arranged for her grandmother to have a very difficult month."

"Tell me you did not."

"I do whatever is necessary." Her voice was as soft as satin. "I always have."

I turned and walked out. My ears were roaring. On the sidewalk the cold hit my face, and I stood on the top step with my hands shaking, looking down the street for any sign of her, and there it was.

A black car pulling away from the curb. Pell at the wheel, I realized, Dacre Knight's driver, and in the back seat, small and white faced, her hand pressed flat against her belly, Isolde. For one second our eyes met through the glass.

She looked at me the way you look at a stranger who has done something unforgivable. Then the car turned the corner.

And behind it, half a block back, a gray sedan slid out from a parking space and followed. A big man at the wheel. He did not even try to hide it.

I got into my own car. I dialed the investigator's number, the one I had called from the terrace, and when he picked up I did not say hello.

"It's me. Find out who my mother has watching Isolde Laurent."

There was a short pause on the line. I heard him breathing, and a keyboard, and then a dry, careful voice.

"Mr. Cole," he said. "I was just about to call you. There aren't one or two."

"How many?"

"Four. And one of them was outside her building last night."