Chapter 297
Effie sat at the large marble kitchen island, playing with her fork, pushing a single blueberry around her plate.
“Mommy,” Effie said suddenly, her voice quiet. “Remember when I fell in the pool?”
Isolde paused, the spatula hovering over the pan. “Yes. At the Hamptons house. Two years ago.”
“I couldn’t swim yet,” Effie said, staring at the blueberry. “Daddy jumped in with his clothes on. He ruined his phone. He saved me.”
Effie looked up. Her large eyes were wet with unshed tears.
“He loved me then,” Effie whispered. “Why not now?”
Isolde slowly set down the spatula and turned off the burner. She couldn’t lie anymore. The “busy with work” excuse was a bandage on a bullet wound.
𝘙𝖾𝘢𝘥 𝘸𝘪t𝘩оu𝗍 𝗶𝗇𝘁𝗲𝗋r𝘂𝘱𝘵𝗂𝘰𝗻𝗌 𝗼n 𝗴𝗮𝗅ո𝘰𝘷еl𝘴.𝘤o𝘮
She walked around the island and pulled up a stool beside her daughter.
“People change, Effie,” Isolde said, choosing her words with agonizing care. “Sometimes… people’s hearts get crowded. They make choices about who they have room for.”
“Crowded with Belle?” Effie asked. “And Kaiden?”
Isolde was taken aback. She hadn’t realized Effie, at five years old, had noticed the shifting dynamics so clearly.
“Kaiden said Daddy gives him special toys,” Effie continued, her brow furrowing. “He told me at school that Daddy likes him best. Is that true, Mommy?”
Isolde gripped the edge of the marble counter. Her knuckles turned white.
The NDA screamed in her head. Forbids the disclosure… of biological lineage.
She couldn’t say yes — if she did, Grayson could drag her back to court and take Effie away. But she couldn’t say no and lie to her daughter’s face.
Isolde took a shaky breath and performed a delicate verbal dance.
“Daddy is Kaiden’s… guardian,” Isolde said carefully. “He takes care of him. He provides for him.”
“Like he used to take care of me?” Effie asked.
Used to.
The past tense hit Isolde like a bullet to the chest.
She slid off the stool and wrapped her arms around Effie, pulling her tight.
“I will take care of you,” Isolde said fiercely into Effie’s hair. “I will never leave. I will be enough for both of us. I promise you, Effie.”
Effie buried her face in Isolde’s apron. “I miss him.”
“I know,” Isolde said, stroking her back. “It’s okay to miss him.”
But inside, in the deepest, darkest part of her soul, Isolde extinguished the very last lingering shred of her love for Grayson Lancaster. He had made her daughter feel replaced. That was the unforgivable sin.
An hour later, the doorbell rang.
Harper walked in, followed closely by Arland Roth, who was carrying a thick leather briefcase.
“I heard about the NDA from Davis,” Arland said, bypassing pleasantries. “It’s barbaric, Isolde. He’s holding you hostage.”
“It’s done,” Isolde said, her voice completely stripped of the emotion she had shown in the kitchen. She poured them coffee. “I don’t want to talk about Grayson. Let’s talk about Vanguard.”
“Good,” Arland said. “Because you need to bury your feelings in work. You need to build something so massive he can’t buy it, and so loud he can’t silence it.”
.