Chapter 2 - The Price of a Dollar
"Selena, please," Ethan said, raising both hands as if approaching a frightened doe—or a lioness guarding her cub. "I was just passing through downtown. I saw you from the street."
"Then keep driving," Selena replied, her voice dropping into a low, fierce murmur so the surrounding shoppers wouldn't notice the scene. "Our business was concluded eleven years ago when your courier dropped a certified envelope at my door. We have nothing to say to each other."
Henry peeked around his mother’s hip, his wide eyes darting between his mother’s rigid back and the stranger in the tailored suit. "Mom? Do you know this man?"
"No, Henry," Selena answered without looking away from Ethan. "He was just leaving."
"Wait," Ethan pleaded, his voice cracking in a way that shocked even himself. He looked down at the boy. "Henry... your name is Henry, right?"
The boy nodded cautiously. "Yes, sir. Henry Cole."
Cole.
The word struck Ethan with the force of a freight train. She hadn’t changed the boy’s name. She hadn’t buried him under a stepfather’s identity or wiped him from existence.
"Henry Cole," Ethan repeated, dropping to one knee right in the middle of the dusty pavement, uncaring that his thousand-dollar trousers were grinding into crushed dirt and melon rind. He looked directly into the boy's eyes, seeing his own youth staring back at him. "How old are you, Henry?"
"I'm ten and a half," Henry replied, puffing out his small chest slightly. "I'll be eleven in November."
November.
Eleven years ago, Ethan had left in February.
The arithmetic was instantaneous and brutal. When Selena had stood in that tiny kitchen, wearing yellow socks, holding her sweater pocket, telling him ‘Ethan, I need to tell you something... it’s important’—she wasn’t trying to talk about their overdue gas bill.
She was carrying his child.
And he had walked out because the vegetable soup was too thin.
"Henry, go to Mrs. Gable’s flower stand right now," Selena commanded, her voice shaking with an intensity that brooked no argument. "Take the change box. Go."
Henry looked at his mother's pale face, sensed the unbearable tension in the air, and obeyed. He grabbed the metal cash box and darted through the crowd toward a neighboring booth filled with sunflowers.
The moment the boy was out of earshot, Selena rounded on Ethan.
"Get off your knees," she hissed, tears of pure rage pooling in her amber eyes. "Don't you dare put on a show in front of my son."
Ethan slowly rose to his feet. Towering over her at six-foot-two, he had never felt smaller in his entire life. "He's mine, isn't he? Selena... why didn't you call me? Why didn't you find me? You knew where I went! My name was in every business paper in the country within two years!"
"Find you?" Selena let out a laugh that was sharp and hollow, cutting him to ribbons. "Why would I find a man who told me that our marriage was a burden holding him back from real life? A man who threw my hand off his arm and told me love doesn't pay the rent?"
"I was a fool!" Ethan took an agonizing step closer. "I was terrified of starving! I was obsessed with proving everyone wrong!"
"And you did!" Selena gestured around her with sweeping arms. "Look at you! Bespoke clothes, a driver waiting in a six-figure car, a security detail probably watching from across the street. You won, Ethan. You got everything you begged life to give you. So what are you doing at a fruit stand on a Wednesday morning trying to claim a boy you abandoned before he took his first breath?"
"I didn't know," Ethan whispered, the words tasting like ashes. "If I had known—"
"If you had listened, you would have known!" she fired back, tears finally spilling over her cheeks. "I tried to tell you that night. I had the ultrasound picture in my sweater pocket. I had bought a five-dollar baby rattle at the thrift store to put in your briefcase. But you didn't have thirty seconds to spare for me because Chicago was calling. You wanted a clean slate, Ethan. Well, you got it."
Passersby were beginning to slow down, glancing at the crying woman and the billionaire standing amid the fruit crates.
Daniel Brooks appeared at Ethan’s shoulder, murmuring softly, "Sir, people are starting to pull out cell phones. We should move."
May you like
Ethan ignored him completely. "Selena, let me help. Look at this stand. You’re breaking your back out here in the heat for twelve dollars a melon. Henry is working when he should be at summer camp! Let me buy you a house. Let me set up a trust fund. I have billions—"
"Keep your money," Selena said coldly, stepping back behind her table. "We don't need your charity. Henry eats every day. He has clean clothes, books to read, and a mother who loves him without calculating the return on investment. Now get in your car, Mr. Cole, and never come back here again."
