Chapter 2 - The Secret Taken to the Grave
Nathaniel lowered Lily onto the large leather sofa in the center of the study. He handed her Mr. Buttons, the stuffed rabbit, and whispered, "Stay right here for a moment, sweetheart."
He walked over to the double doors of the study, pulled them shut, and turned the heavy brass key in the lock.
"What are you doing?" Clara asked nervously, backing away toward the windows.
"I am going to get the truth," Nathaniel said. He walked over to his desk, opened the bottom drawer, and pulled out a glass bottle of amber scotch. His hands shook so violently he could barely pour two fingers into a crystal tumbler. He didn't drink it. He simply held the glass, staring at Clara.
"Two years ago," Nathaniel said, his voice flat and dead, "my wife was driving down Highway 9 in Westchester during a winter storm. Her car skidded off the cliff road near the river. The police told me the brake lines were severed by debris. They told me she died on impact."
He swallowed hard, his throat working tightly.
"They told me our unborn daughter... died in her womb."
Clara looked down at her hands. Tears slipped silently down her cheeks, dripping onto the gray fabric of her uniform.
"The police lied to you, Mr. Cole," Clara whispered. "Or rather, the doctor who signed the death certificate was paid to lie to you."
Nathaniel’s glass shattered in his hand.
The crystal fragment cut into his palm, but he didn't seem to notice the dark red blood pooling on the polished wood of his desk.
"What did you say?" he asked, his voice dropping into a deadly register.
"Eleanor didn't die in that crash," Clara said, her voice growing stronger as the truth she had carried in secret for three years finally clawed its way into the light. "She survived the impact. She was seven months pregnant. She managed to crawl out of the vehicle before it burst into flames and dragged herself to a gas station a mile down the road."
Nathaniel felt his knees give out. He gripped the edge of his desk to keep from falling. "She... she crawled away? Why didn't she call me?! Why didn't the hospital call me?!"
"Because Eleanor knew the crash wasn't an accident," Clara said, stepping forward, her eyes flashing with a fierce, protective light. "She knew her car had been sabotaged. Three days before the crash, Eleanor found financial records hidden in a private safe at your city apartment. She realized someone in your inner circle—someone inside Cole Enterprises—was embezzling millions and setting you up to take the fall for a federal fraud investigation."
Nathaniel’s eyes widened in horror. "Julian..."
"Your stepbrother," Clara confirmed nodding grimly. "Julian Cole. Eleanor confronted him privately, telling him she was going to bring the evidence to you and the board of directors. Julian told her that if she said a word, he would make sure both you and her baby were eliminated."
Nathaniel’s mind reeled. Julian Cole—the man who had sat beside him at Eleanor’s memorial service, the man who had hugged him while he wept, the man who had taken over as Vice Chairman of Cole Enterprises after Nathaniel withdrew into his crippling grief.
"When Eleanor survived the crash that night," Clara continued, "she knew that if Julian found out she was alive, he would finish the job, and he would kill you to take full control of the company. She called me from a burner phone at two in the morning. I drove to a private clinic in New Jersey where an old family friend was an emergency doctor."
Clara turned her head slowly and looked at the sofa.
Lily was sitting peacefully on the leather cushions, humming a quiet lullaby to her stuffed rabbit, oblivious to the storm raging around her.
Nathaniel followed Clara’s gaze.
His heart stopped beating. The blood in his veins ran ice cold, then surged back with the heat of a supernova.
"She went into emergency labor that night at the clinic," Clara whispered, her voice choking on a sob. "Eleanor lived long enough to deliver her baby. She held her daughter for forty-five minutes, Mr. Cole. Forty-five minutes."
Nathaniel slowly turned his head to look at Clara. "She... she delivered?"
"Eleanor was bleeding internally. The doctors couldn't stop it," Clara wept, covering her face with her hands. "Before she closed her eyes for the last time, she put that baby in my arms. She gave me her locket. She made me swear on her soul that I would take the baby, change my name, hide in the shadows, and never, ever bring her near the Cole family until Julian Cole was stripped of his power."
Clara took a deep, trembling breath and looked directly into Nathaniel’s eyes.
"Eleanor named her Lily. After your mother."
Nathaniel stood frozen in the middle of the room.
The rain beat furiously against the tall glass windows. The wind howled through the trees outside. But inside Nathaniel’s mind, there was only a blinding, beautiful, devastating white light.
He turned slowly toward the sofa.
He looked at the little girl with dark curls—the dark curls he had carried as a boy, the green eyes of his beloved Eleanor, the tiny dimple on her right cheek that matched his own childhood photographs.
Lily looked up from her rabbit and gave him a bright, sweet smile.
"Why are you looking at me like that, mister?" she asked softly.
Nathaniel fell to his knees on the Persian rug. He buried his face in his hands, and for the second time that night, the powerful, untouchable millionaire wept until his chest ached.
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Lily was not dead.
His daughter was sitting on his couch.
