Chapter 15 - The Woman Who Knocked at My Studio
Sloane arrived without the twins.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The second was how different she looked.
At the conference table months earlier, everything about her had been polished.
Hair.
Makeup.
Cream suit.
A hand displayed carefully across her pregnant stomach.
Now she wore jeans, flat shoes, and a coat with what looked suspiciously like dried baby formula on one sleeve.
Marisol came to my office door.
“There’s a woman asking for you.”
I saw Sloane behind her.
“You can tell her I’m unavailable.”
Sloane heard.
She nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Then she placed an envelope on Marisol’s desk.
“I’ll leave this.”
Something in her voice made me stop her.
“What is it?”
She looked at me.
“Evidence.”
Ten minutes later, we sat in the conference room.
The door remained open.
I wanted boundaries visible.
Sloane folded her hands.
“Conrad contacted me before he disappeared.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“Three days before.”
“Did you tell investigators?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because there’s a part involving you.”
Of course there was.
Conrad had apparently made a hobby of leaving my name inside other people’s disasters.
Sloane pushed the envelope toward me.
I did not touch it.
“He offered me money,” she said.
“For what?”
“To take the babies overseas.”
My anger came fast.
Not at her.
At him.
“He wanted his own children hidden?”
“He wanted control.”
That sounded like Conrad.
“What does this have to do with me?”
Sloane’s eyes lowered.
“He said the money would come from an account that technically belonged to you.”
I felt cold.
“How much?”
“Six million.”
I called Leah.
The meeting changed immediately.
Within an hour, Sloane’s attorney joined by phone.
The envelope contained printed messages.
Not screenshots alone.
Metadata had been preserved.
Sloane had already provided the original device to investigators for examination.
Conrad had offered to arrange housing abroad and create a trust for the twins.
In exchange, Sloane would refuse cooperation with investigators, challenge certain financial records, and state that Claire Morgan had been threatening her.
I read that line twice.
Me.
Threatening her.
“What did you tell him?”
“No.”
Sloane looked directly at me.
“I told him I would never use the children to help him escape consequences.”
I believed her.
Not because I trusted her.
Because the evidence would verify it.
There was a difference.
“You should have called police immediately.”
“I called my lawyer.”
“Good.”
She flinched slightly.
The old version of me might have softened.
Instead, I allowed the truth to remain uncomfortable.
Sloane had done terrible things.
She had also made a better choice this time.
Both could exist.
Before she left, she hesitated.
“There’s something I want to say.”
“You’ve apologized.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t apologize again.”
Her face tightened.
“All right.”
She stood.
I expected her to go.
Instead, she said, “Grant visits the twins.”
That surprised me.
“Why?”
“He says they’re his brother and sister.”
I stared.
The biological truth had created a family structure so absurd no one could have invented it convincingly.
Sloane smiled sadly.
“He brings books.”
I pictured Grant holding Oliver or Grace.
Children he had once believed were proof that leaving me was justified.
Now they were reminders of everything he had misunderstood.
“How do you feel about that?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
The most honest answer possible.
“He doesn’t pretend to be their father,” she continued. “He just… shows up.”
I thought about the man Grant had been.
Then the one he was painfully trying to become.
“Showing up is a start.”
Sloane nodded.
At the door, she stopped.
“For what it’s worth, I hope you marry Noah.”
I stiffened.
“How do you know about Noah?”
She almost smiled.
“The internet.”
Of course.
Someone had photographed us leaving my conference.
The headline had described Noah as my “mystery architect boyfriend.”
He found that hilarious because he was not an architect.
“I’m not discussing my relationship with you.”
“I know.”
She opened the door.
Then she turned.
“I just wanted you to know that watching someone choose you without treating you like property made me realize how little I understood about love.”
This time, I had no answer.
After she left, Marisol appeared.
“Was that the mistress?”
I looked at her.
She covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
“You read the internet.”
“Everyone reads the internet.”
I sighed.
“She has a name.”
“Sloane.”
“Yes.”
Marisol nodded solemnly.
Then she whispered, “Still kind of the mistress, though.”
I laughed so hard I had to sit down.
That evening, Noah met me at the Charleston airport.
I stopped in the terminal.
“What are you doing here?”
He lifted one shoulder.
“Olivia said you were finally willing to see the garden in person.”
“You coordinated this?”
“Barely.”
Outside, warm air replaced Chicago’s cold.
We drove through streets lined with old houses and oak trees.
When we reached the garden, sunset was filtering through the branches.
No chairs.
No music.
No audience.
Just us.
Noah took my hand.
My pulse jumped.
He did not kneel.
He looked at me.
“Claire Morgan, do you want to marry me?”
Simple.
Private.
No assumption.
No performance.
I started crying before I answered.
“Yes.”
May you like
Then he reached into his pocket.
This time, it really was a ring.
