He Gave My Daughter’s Heart to His Mistress’s Son Chapter 09

He Gave My Daughter’s Heart to His Mistress’s Son Chapter 09

I called the security team before Sloane finished her sentence.

By morning, my father had tripled the detail on Lily, on my mother, on me. Grant’s photo went to every gate, every school entrance, every hospital lobby in the network. The restraining order violation-he’d contacted/ Sloane to send a message to me-went straight to his probation officer.

But Grant had stopped being findable.

His apartment: abandoned, rent unpaid. His car: sold for cash. His phone: dead. A man who four months ago had been a rising cardiothoracic surgeon had dissolved into the city like sugar into water, and somewhere in that city he was walking around with a hammer and a list of things he believed he was owed.

“He’ll surface,” the head of security said. “Men like this always surface. They can’t help it-they need an

audience.”

So we lived our lives inside a soft, invisible armor, and I refused to let Lily feel any of it.

And here is the strange, embarrassing truth: those weeks, lived under guard, waiting for a madman-they were the happiest weeks of my entire life.

Lily got stronger daily. Her cardiology checkups became victory laps. Caleb conducted them personally, with deep solemnity, ending each one the same way: he’d listen to her heart, frown like a mechanic, and announce,

“Purring. Just like I promised,” and she’d collapse into giggles.

for

My mother taught me to make her grandmother’s lemon cake and cried into the batter and laughed at herself

her took Lily “to work,” which meant a helicopter, which meant I got seventeen photos of my

wearing a headset and gravely pretending to fly it.

And Caleb.

Caleb, who never once mentioned the rose garden, or the christening, or twenty-eight years. Who showed

up with coffee and asked about my day-not the heiress’s day, not the patient’s mother’s day, mine. Who I

caught, once, standing at the foot of Lily’s bed at the end of evening rounds, just watching her sleep with an

expression I had no name for.

“You know that I know,” I finally said one evening, on the hospital roof garden, where he’d taken to walking with me after Lily’s checkups. “My father told me. The estate next door. The christening. The registry.”

He was quiet for a moment, hands in his pockets, looking out at the city lights.

“I was six,” he said at last. “Everyone told me a six-year-old’s promise doesn’t count. That I’d forget you.” He shrugged, almost smiling. “I’m a very stubborn person, Aria. Ask my surgical team.”

“You built your whole career around-

“No.” He turned to me, and his eyes were very steady. “I built my career around children with broken hearts. The registry was just… leaving a porch light on.” He paused. “I’d made my peace with never finding you And thén one night the system flagged a match, and I looked at the file, and there was your face. Grown up. Married to a man who-” his jaw tightened, and he stopped himself. “And with a sick little girl. And I thought. I don’t need her to remember me. I just need to fix the kid’s heart.”

“And after that?”

“After that,” he said, “I was going to introduce myself slowly, like a normal person, over a year or two.” A rueful

breath of laughter. “Your father lasted eleven weeks before he told you. He’s terrible at secrets. It’s why your

mother handles the Christmas presents.”

I laughed-really laughed-and somewhere in the middle of it his hand found mine on the railing, careful, asking, and I didn’t pull away.

“I’m a mess, Caleb,” I said quietly. “I spent eleven years being trained to apologize for existing. I don’t even

know who Aria Whitlock is yet.”

“Then take your time meeting her.” His thumb moved once across my knuckles. “I waited twenty-eight years. I’m not in a hurry. I’m just not going anywhere, either.”

We stood there in the dark above the city, and for one whole hour I forgot to be afraid.

Then I went down to the parking garage, and the fear came back all at once.

Tucked under my windshield wiper, folded in half, was a sheet of paper. My security detail was twenty feet

away. No one had seen anyone approach.

Inside, in handwriting I’d recognized for eleven years:

You took my career. My family. My name. Even my son turned out to be a lie.

Everything I have left, you took.

So now I’m going to take what’s yours. You’ll know when.