Chapter 3 - THE SHADOW OF GREENWICH
“Get them out of here,” Margaret commanded the guards, dropped all pretenses of restraint. “Now.”
The first guard reached for my arm.
He never touched me.
Julian shifted his body instantly, placing his shoulder in front of the guard’s chest with a force that sent the larger man stumbling back two paces.
“Touch her, and you’re fired before you reach the driveway,” Julian growled, his voice laced with pure menace.
The security guards froze, looking helplessly at Margaret.
Julian turned back to me, his chest heaving slightly. He looked down at Sophia, who stirred softly against his chest, yawning and burying her nose into his neck. The gesture was so instinctively familiar, so painfully identical to how Julian slept when he was exhausted, that a collective murmur rippled through the guests who were watching.
“She has my eyes,” Julian whispered, his silver-grey eyes wide with sudden, staggering realization.
“Julian, don't be ridiculous!” Margaret snapped, her voice cracking with desperation. “She’s a housekeeper’s child! You don't know who this woman has been with since you left Maine!”
“She has my mother’s eyes,” Julian said, ignoring Margaret completely. “She has the exact amber flecks around the iris that my grandmother had. The same mark I have.”
He looked at me, his eyes searching mine with a desperation that shattered the cold, unshakeable persona he wore for the world.
“Elena... is she mine?”
The truth rushed up in my chest like fire. I had spent nineteen months raising Sophia alone in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, working twelve-hour shifts, scrubbing floors, skipping meals so I could afford formula and diapers, all while believing the man I loved had paid fifty thousand dollars to get rid of us.
“She is mine,” I said fiercely, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. “She is only mine because you threw us away!”
“I never threw you away!” Julian shouted, his voice echoing off the high vaulted ceiling, shocking the entire ballroom. “I wrote to you every single week for six months! I sent cars to Maine! They told me the cottage was empty, that you took money from my family and vanished!”
I stared at him, my mind reeling. “What?”
Julian’s head snapped toward Margaret. The look on his face was terrifying.
May you like
Margaret took a half-step back, her aristocratic facade crumbling as she looked at her son’s lethal glare.
“In my study,” Julian ordered his assistant, who was standing wide-eyed near the orchestra platform. “Lock the doors to the estate. Nobody leaves this house. Not a single guest, not my mother, not anyone.”
