Chapter 1 - The Answer He Deserved
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Isabella stared at him as if he had asked why the sky was blue.
Then she laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“I did.”
Alexander felt the ballroom shift beneath his feet.
“What?”
“I told you, Alexander.”
“No. You didn’t.”
The words escaped automatically, the same way they always had when her truth threatened the orderly world he preferred.
Isabella’s expression changed.
Not surprise. Recognition.
“There he is,” she whispered.
He opened his mouth, but she raised one hand.
“Not another word until you decide whether you’re asking me a question or telling me what happened.”
Across the ballroom, Lily stood beside Caroline, showing her stuffed rabbit to a violinist during the musicians’ break.
Alexander watched the little girl carefully straighten one floppy ear.
He had missed that gesture a thousand times without knowing it existed.
“I’m asking,” he said.
Isabella glanced toward a quiet alcove beyond the reception desk.
“Two minutes. Where I can still see her.”
He followed.
She stayed standing, her small evening bag held tightly between both hands.
“I found out I was pregnant eleven days after you served me divorce papers.”
Alexander remembered those papers.
Cream stationery. A fountain pen. His father waiting outside his study afterward, telling him that difficult decisions made strong men.
“I called your private number,” Isabella continued. “Four times.”
“I never received—”
“You changed it.”
He stopped.
Yes.
His father had suggested that, too.
A clean break.
“I emailed your office. Then I sent a letter by certified mail. Your assistant signed for it.”
“Who?”
“Elaine Porter.”
His father’s longtime administrative director. She had managed Alexander’s correspondence while his own assistant was on medical leave.
Isabella swallowed.
“A week later, your family’s law firm sent me a response.”
“What response?”
Her eyes shone now, but her voice remained steady.
“It said any further personal contact would be considered harassment. It said your position regarding the marriage and any future obligations was final.”
Alexander stared at her.
“No.”
“There’s that word again.”
“I never authorized that.”
“Maybe you didn’t.” She looked toward Lily. “But you authorized everything that made me believe it.”
That hurt more because he could not argue.
He had accused her of stealing confidential documents.
He had ignored her explanations.
When she asked him to look at the evidence himself, he had told her his father would never invent something so serious.
He remembered her standing in their bedroom, one hand resting against the dresser.
“You’re choosing not to know me,” she had said.
At the time, he had mistaken her quietness for defeat.
Now he understood it had been grief.
“Do you still have the letter?”
“Yes.”
“Will you send me a copy?”
Isabella studied him for several seconds.
“My attorney will.”
“Your attorney?”
“Did you expect me to walk into this conversation unprotected?”
Before he could answer, his father appeared at the edge of the alcove.
Richard Blackwood wore a midnight tuxedo and the indulgent expression he used when other people embarrassed themselves.
“Alexander. Senator Wexler is waiting.”
Then his gaze moved to Isabella.
His smile disappeared so quickly Alexander might once have missed it.
“Isabella,” Richard said. “This is unexpected.”
“Apparently, a lot of things are.”
Richard glanced across the ballroom.
Toward Lily.
His eyes stopped.
Alexander saw it.
Not confusion.
Calculation.
“Dad,” Alexander said slowly, “did you know she was pregnant?”
Richard adjusted his cuff.
“This is hardly the place.”
“Did you know?”
Isabella’s fingers tightened around her bag.
Richard lowered his voice.
“You’re upset. We should discuss this privately.”
Alexander had heard that tone his entire life.
It meant someone inconvenient was about to be removed from the room.
For the first time, he recognized it before obeying.
“No,” he said. “You can answer here.”
Richard’s expression cooled.
“I protected you from an unstable situation.”
Isabella stepped backward.
Alexander turned toward her, suddenly terrified she would disappear.
“Please. Don’t leave yet.”
“Lily has a bedtime.”
“Can I see her again?”
“That depends on what you do next.”
He nodded, though everything inside him wanted to bargain.
She walked toward her daughter.
Lily looked up, smiling, and reached for her mother’s hand.
At the entrance, she glanced back.
“Goodbye, picture man.”
Alexander lifted one hand.
He could not make himself speak.
After they disappeared into the elevator, his father exhaled impatiently.
“You cannot seriously be considering letting her back into your life.”
Alexander faced him.
“Tomorrow morning, you’re giving me every piece of correspondence your office received from my wife.”
“Your former wife.”
Alexander’s voice became very quiet.
May you like
“Every piece.”
For once, Richard Blackwood had no immediate answer.
