Chapter 1 - The Cry Beside Reed Callaway’s Office
The supply-room door opened before I could hide the bottle.
Reed Callaway filled the doorway.
Thirty-seven. Tall. Dark hair. Navy suit worth more than everything I owned. One tattoo disappeared beneath his open collar while another crossed the hand resting against the doorframe.
Nobody in Chicago needed to explain who Reed was.
Politicians ate at his restaurant.
Judges returned his calls.
Men with bodyguards waited when he told them to wait.
And I was sitting on the floor beside his forbidden office with an eight-month-old baby hidden against my chest.
His eyes moved from me to Ava.
“Why is there a baby beside my office?”
My mouth went dry.
“Mr. Callaway—”
Ava began crying.
Perfect timing.
I stood too quickly and nearly knocked over a stack of folded linens.
“Please don’t fire me. My sitter canceled. I couldn’t miss another shift.”
Footsteps hurried down the hall.
Elena appeared.
The moment she saw Ava, anger flashed across her face.
“Mara.”
I had heard my manager say my name a thousand times.
Never like that.
“She broke the rules,” Elena told Reed. “I’ll remove her.”
She reached for my arm.
Reed raised one hand.
Elena stopped instantly.
Not because he touched her.
Because Reed Callaway never needed to.
Ava cried harder.
I backed against the shelves as Reed stepped into the room.
Then, to my disbelief, he crouched.
His eyes moved over everything I had desperately tried to make look acceptable.
The folded tablecloth.
The changing pad.
The stuffed rabbit.
The bottle with barely enough formula left for another feeding.
Then his gaze dropped to my shoes.
The sole of my left sneaker had split near the toe.
Snow had soaked through it on the walk to work.
He looked at my hands.
They were shaking.
“When did you last eat?”
Heat rushed into my face.
“That isn’t relevant.”
“It became relevant when you hid an infant beside my office.”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Before I could answer, Ava reached outward.
Her tiny fingers closed around Reed’s tattooed index finger.
The hallway became completely silent.
Reed stopped moving.
Ava stopped crying.
For one strange second, Chicago’s most feared restaurant owner and my daughter simply stared at each other.
Then something slipped from the diaper bag.
A photograph.
My stomach dropped.
Reed picked it up before I could.
The picture had been taken almost two years earlier.
Me.
Ava’s father.
Phoenix sunlight behind us.
Reed’s face changed.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
“Where did you get this?”
I reached for it.
“He’s Ava’s father.”
Reed didn’t give it back.
“What’s his name?”
“Evan Mercer.”
His eyes lifted sharply.
“No.”
My pulse stumbled.
“What?”
Reed stared at the smiling man in the photograph.
“That isn’t Evan Mercer.”
The warmth disappeared from his expression.
He stood and locked the supply-room door.
Elena took one nervous step backward.
I tightened my arms around Ava.
“Then who is he?”
Reed looked at me.
And for the first time since I had met him, I saw something more unsettling than anger in his face.
Fear.
“His name is Daniel Callaway.”
I stopped breathing.
Reed looked at Ava again.
May you like
Then quietly added:
“And he’s my brother.”
