Chapter 3 - THE DNA TEST GAVE GABRIEL WHAT HE WANTED AND TOOK AWAY EVERY EXCUSE
Gabriel did not come home with me that night.
I would not allow it.
He did, however, place security outside my building.
I objected.
Then compromised.
Two men.
Outside only.
No one inside the lobby.
No guns visible.
No one following the boys into school.
Gabriel looked physically offended by every condition.
He agreed anyway.
The DNA test happened the next morning.
Private medical office.
Independent laboratory.
My attorney chose it.
Not Gabriel.
Another condition.
He agreed to that too.
Theo thought the cheek swab was hilarious.
Luca asked whether the cotton stick could detect whether he was secretly a superhero.
Miles stared suspiciously at Gabriel the entire time.
“Does this mean you’re maybe Dad?”
Gabriel crouched.
“It means a lab is going to confirm something your mom and I already believe.”
Miles nodded.
“Mom says labs are science.”
“She’s right.”
“Are you science?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“No.”
I almost smiled.
The results came thirty-one hours later.
Probability of paternity:
Greater than 99.99 percent.
All three.
Gabriel read the report once.
Then again.
Then he asked for a third copy.
My attorney stared.
“You only need one.”
“I have three sons.”
She looked at him.
“That is not how laboratory reports work.”
Gabriel did not care.
He took three.
The first time he visited the boys at my Connecticut house, he arrived with gifts.
Too many.
Three electric ride-on cars.
A miniature drone.
Custom baseball gloves.
A telescope.
And three watches that probably cost more than my first car.
I stood on the porch.
“No.”
Gabriel looked behind him at the mountain of boxes.
“What?”
“You cannot buy five years in one afternoon.”
His jaw tightened.
“They’re gifts.”
“They’re overwhelmed.”
“So?”
“So take most of it back.”
“I’m their father.”
“And I’m the parent who has known them longer than thirty-six hours.”
That landed.
Gabriel stared at me.
Then at the boys behind the screen door.
Theo’s eyes were enormous.
Luca had already spotted the drone.
Miles was whispering:
“Cars.”
Gabriel exhaled.
“What can stay?”
“One thing each.”
He looked as though I had asked him to choose which finger to keep.
Eventually:
Telescope for Theo.
Baseball glove for Luca.
One ride-on car for Miles.
The problem?
Only one car and three boys.
I raised an eyebrow.
Gabriel understood.
“Fine.”
He sent all three cars back.
Miles almost mutinied.
Good parenting requires surviving disappointment.
Gabriel remained for lunch.
The boys interrogated him.
“What do you do?”
Theo asked.
“Freight.”
Gabriel answered.
“What’s freight?”
“Things moving from one place to another.”
Luca frowned.
“Trucks?”
“Yes.”
“Ships?”
“Yes.”
“Planes?”
“Sometimes.”
Miles:
“Bad guys?”
I stopped breathing.
Gabriel did too.
“What makes you ask that?”
Miles shrugged.
“Mom said your job had bad guys.”
I closed my eyes.
I had said his world had dangerous people.
Five-year-old translation.
Gabriel looked at me.
No accusation.
Then:
“Sometimes I knew bad people.”
“Are you bad?”
Theo asked.
Children do not warm up slowly.
Gabriel thought.
“I did things I’m not proud of.”
The room went quiet.
“But?”
Luca prompted.
Gabriel almost smiled.
“But I’m trying to make better choices.”
Miles considered.
“Mom says that when I color on wall.”
Fair.
After lunch, Gabriel sat on the floor building a cardboard airport with them.
I watched from the kitchen.
For a man who commanded entire rooms with one glance, he was strangely terrible at taping cardboard.
Theo corrected him twice.
Luca ignored his instructions.
Miles climbed onto his back.
Gabriel froze when little arms wrapped around his neck.
I saw his eyes close.
For one second, he did not look like Gabriel Cross.
Boss.
Billionaire.
Man people whispered about.
He looked like a father who had just discovered the exact weight of what he missed.
Then Serena called.
His phone lit up on the kitchen counter.
I saw her name.
Gabriel did too.
He did not answer.
“Take it.”
I said.
He looked at me.
“Claire.”
“I’m not asking because I care about your relationship.”
Lie.
A little.
“I’m asking because pretending she doesn’t exist does not help anything.”
Gabriel stepped outside.
He returned ten minutes later.
Face hard.
“What?”
I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Gabriel.”
“Serena and I are done.”
The sentence hit strangely.
“When?”
“Last night.”
I stared.
“You broke up with her because of this?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
His eyes moved toward the boys.
“Because we have been nearly done for two years.”
That surprised me.
“The photographs—”
“Public.”
“Vacations?”
“Sometimes real.”
“And sometimes?”
“Appearances.”
Of course.
“You were going to marry her?”
“I proposed two years ago.”
My chest tightened.
“She gave the ring back six months later.”
“Why?”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“She said I loved control more than people.”
I almost choked on the irony.
“She was not wrong.”
No.
She had been wrong about many things.
Maybe not that.
He continued.
“We stayed together because ending it publicly created complications.”
“Business?”
“Yes.”
“Image?”
“Yes.”
“Convenience?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
Convenience again.
The graveyard of relationships.
Then his security chief called.
The man who had threatened me five years earlier might finally have a name.
Elias arrived with a folder.
He sat at my dining table because I insisted this conversation happen in my house.
No boys.
Emily took them to the park.
Elias placed a photograph between us.
A man in his forties.
Thick neck.
Scar at the chin.
My skin went cold.
“That’s him.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Name?”
Elias answered.
“Colin Reese.”
Former security contractor.
Previously employed by Vale Model Management.
I stared.
“Vale.”
Serena.
Gabriel did not move.
Elias continued carefully.
“Five years ago, Serena’s agency used Reese for private protection and surveillance.”
I felt the room tilt.
“Why would her security man follow me?”
Gabriel’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Find out.”
Elias opened another page.
“We already did part of it.”
Bank records recovered from an old civil case showed Reese received two payments around the exact week of my ultrasound.
Both from a company called:
Sable Public Relations.
Owner?
Serena Vale’s former manager.
Gabriel stared at the paper.
“No.”
Elias said nothing.
I felt sick.
“Did Serena know I was pregnant?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Then how would her manager?”
Another document.
A private investigator had been hired five years earlier.
Target:
Claire Cross.
Start date:
Four days after the divorce filing.
Ordered by Sable Public Relations.
Gabriel’s face became stone.
“Serena had me followed?”
“Possibly through her manager.”
“Why?”
Elias turned another page.
The investigator’s notes included:
Subject visited obstetric imaging center.
Then:
Multiple gestation suspected.
My throat closed.
Serena’s side knew.
Maybe before Gabriel ever could.
The man who approached me did not accidentally learn there were three babies.
Somebody had paid to watch.
The final page contained a handwritten instruction copied from the investigator’s archived file.
Make sure she understands going back to Cross is unsafe. No physical contact.
No signature.
No author.
But the investigator told Elias the instruction came from Serena’s manager after “speaking with the client.”
Gabriel stood so fast his chair hit the wall.
“Where is she?”
I stood too.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Claire.”
“No.”
“She threatened my sons before they were born.”
“She may have frightened me.”
“That’s enough.”
“Not for whatever you are thinking.”
His eyes burned.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“Yes, I do.”
I stepped closer.
“Five years ago I kept your children from you because I was afraid of the world around you.”
That stopped him.
“If you respond by proving I was right, then what exactly are we rebuilding?”
Gabriel stared.
Long.
Hard.
Then his hands slowly opened.
“Police.”
I said.
“Attorneys.”
“Evidence.”
He hated every word.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
Elias gathered the papers.
I asked:
“Does Serena know we found this?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Why good?”
“Because this time she doesn’t get to know the story before we do.”
The next morning, Serena called me.
Not Gabriel.
Me.
I stared at her name.
I had never given her my number.
I answered.
“Claire.”
Her voice was shaking.
“We need to talk.”
“About what?”
A pause.
“Five years ago.”
My grip tightened.
Then Serena said:
“I never told Gabriel you were pregnant.”
My entire body went cold.
May you like
So she had known.
And the truth was about to become worse.
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