Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Already Waiting
Lorraine didn't come to Phoenix Sky Harbor because I called her.
She had already been there.
That changed the question.
It wasn't why she had hidden Tessa from me.
It was why she was watching her now.
I noticed the taller man beside Lorraine speaking quietly into his phone.
“Put it away.”
He looked at my mother.
Wrong decision.
“I wasn't talking to her.”
His hand lowered.
Lorraine stepped closer.
“You don't understand what's happening.”
“Then explain.”
“This isn't the place.”
“You were comfortable enough confronting Tessa here.”
The twins were awake now.
Tessa kept both behind her.
I hated that they looked at me with the same uncertainty they showed Lorraine.
I was a stranger too.
A dangerous-looking stranger their mother feared.
So I backed away.
“I'm not touching them.”
Tessa studied me.
Something in her shoulders loosened.
Barely.
Lorraine noticed.
“Grant, those children are not your responsibility.”
Not my children.
Not your sons.
She chose responsibility.
“Interesting wording.”
Her jaw tightened.
I called my security chief, Mason Cole.
“Terminal Four. Bring three men. Nobody leaves with Tessa or the boys.”
Tessa flinched.
I immediately corrected myself.
“Unless Tessa chooses to leave.”
Her eyes met mine.
That mattered.
Six years earlier, I would have ordered first and explained later.
Apparently six years without her had taught me something.
Lorraine's men separated.
One moved toward an exit.
“Mason,” I said into the phone, “photograph both men with my mother.”
Lorraine finally lost patience.
“Stop behaving like some jealous boy who discovered an old girlfriend has children.”
“One of those boys has my face.”
“Coincidence.”
“Then DNA will settle it.”
“No.”
Too fast.
Tessa and I both heard it.
My mother recovered.
“I mean you cannot demand testing from children you've never met.”
“Correct.”
I looked at Tessa.
“I won't.”
She stared at me.
Then slowly reached into her beige travel bag.
She removed an envelope.
“I don't need a new test.”
My name was written across it.
GRANT WHITLOCK.
The seal had been broken years ago.
Inside were two birth certificates.
Noah Monroe.
Lucas Monroe.
Father: blank.
Then a laboratory report.
Probability of paternity: 99.99%.
My knees nearly failed me.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I did.”
She wasn't looking at me.
She was looking at Lorraine.
“I came to your house when I was eleven weeks pregnant.”
My mother said nothing.
Tessa continued.
“Lorraine met me at the gate.”
I turned.
“What happened?”
“She showed me photographs.”
“What photographs?”
Tessa's eyes filled.
“You standing beside a burned car.”
I remembered it.
A rival crew had attacked one of my warehouses.
Two men died.
“Tessa—”
“She told me that was what happened to people you loved.”
Lorraine interrupted.
“I protected her.”
Tessa looked at her.
“You gave me forty-eight hours to disappear.”
Then she pulled something else from the envelope.
A photograph.
Tessa, visibly pregnant, standing outside a motel.
Behind her was one of Lorraine's men.
Watching.
My mother's expression changed.
I recognized him too.
He had worked for my family for twenty-two years.
“Where is Walter Dane?”
Lorraine remained silent.
Mason arrived behind us.
He heard the name.
His face tightened.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Walter died four years ago.”
Tessa shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I saw him yesterday.”
Then Lucas whispered from behind her:
May you like
“He followed us here.”
And somewhere across the terminal, a man turned and walked quickly into the crowd.
