Chapter 1 - The Math and the Memory
Griffin swallowed hard.
The truth was too heavy for a phone call with a terrified child.
“We used to be very close,” he said.
“Are you coming?”
“I’m walking out the door right now. Hazel, stay on the phone with me until the paramedics arrive.”
“Okay.”
Griffin took the private elevator down to his garage. He didn’t wait for his driver. He threw himself into his Aston Martin and sped into the Seattle rain.
His mind raced.
Ten years since Sloan had walked out of his penthouse, leaving nothing but her keys on the kitchen counter.
But nine years ago…
Nine years ago, they had crossed paths at a charity gala in Chicago.
One night.
One night where the anger had melted into something else. One night of forgetting why they were supposed to stay apart.
When Griffin woke up the next morning, her side of the bed had been cold.
She had vanished. Completely.
And now, there were eight-year-old twins.
The math was undeniable.
“They’re here,” Hazel’s small voice echoed through the car’s Bluetooth. “The ambulance people are here.”
“Let them in, sweetheart,” Griffin said, his chest tightening at the word. “Tell them you have an emergency contact meeting you at Seattle General.”
“Okay.”
The line went quiet as Hazel spoke to the paramedics.
Then Iris’s voice came through.
“She’s waking up a little, but she’s really confused. They said her blood pressure is dangerously low.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Griffin promised.
“Are you really Griffin D.?” Iris asked.
“Yes.”
“Mommy has a box in her closet,” Iris said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “She told us never to open it. But we did once, when we were looking for wrapping paper.”
Griffin gripped the steering wheel.
“What was in it, Iris?”
“A newspaper clipping about a billionaire. And a picture of a man holding her on a boat.”
Iris paused.
“Hazel thinks you’re the man in the picture. Are you?”
Griffin’s vision blurred.
The boat in Santorini. Eleven years ago. The trip where he had asked Sloan to marry him, before his family’s empire tore them apart.
“Yes,” Griffin said thickly. “I’m the man in the picture.”
“Are you our daddy?” Iris asked.
May you like
The question shattered the last remaining wall around Griffin Drake’s heart.
“I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. “But I’m going to find out.”
