Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN HE HAD BEEN LOOKING FOR
Richard Lancaster was a man who could apparently make entire rooms go silent by raising one eyebrow.
His eight-year-old son was not impressed.
Alex stood at the top of the staircase with his arms folded tightly across his narrow chest, his dark hair sticking up on one side and fury burning in eyes that looked exactly like his father’s.
“Well?” he demanded. “Who is she?”
Beside him, Max had one hand buried in the golden retriever’s fur.
Richard looked at me.
I looked at Richard.
The dog sneezed.
“Excellent leadership,” I muttered.
Richard’s mouth tightened.
Then he turned toward his sons.
“This is Elena Hart.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “I figured that part out because you called her Elena.”
“She’ll be staying here.”
“For how long?”
Richard paused.
I already knew enough about children to understand that hesitation was gasoline near an open flame.
Alex’s expression changed.
“No.”
“Alex—”
“No.”
He came down two stairs.
“You said nobody was coming here.”
Richard’s face lost some of its hardness.
“I said nobody would replace your mother.”
“You promised.”
“I’m keeping that promise.”
“Then why is she here?”
I stepped forward before Richard could produce one of those calm, terrifying boardroom answers.
“Because your father made a completely ridiculous decision in the middle of a thunderstorm.”
Max giggled.
Alex stared at me.
I shrugged.
“He found me sitting beside four wet suitcases and apparently decided what his life needed was another problem.”
Richard looked at me.
“You’re not a problem.”
“Give me time.”
Max laughed harder.
Even Alex’s mouth twitched before he remembered he was angry.
Richard exhaled.
“Elena and I are going to be married.”
Silence.
The dog barked.
Max’s jaw dropped.
Alex went white.
Then he turned around and ran upstairs.
His bedroom door slammed hard enough to shake a framed landscape on the wall.
“Richard.”
“I know.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think you do.”
His shoulders stiffened.
Max looked nervously between us.
I crouched beside him.
“Hey.”
He had the saddest brown eyes I had ever seen.
“Are you really marrying Dad?”
“Apparently.”
“Do you like dinosaurs?”
I blinked.
Richard closed his eyes briefly.
“I’ve been interrogated by less efficient people.”
Max ignored him.
“Well?”
“I think dinosaurs are excellent.”
His face brightened.
“Even ankylosaurus?”
“Especially ankylosaurus.”
“Why?”
“I respect anything that walks around carrying its own weaponized tail.”
Max grinned.
“Okay. You can stay.”
“Thank you. I was worried.”
Richard stared at his six-year-old.
“Good to know ownership of the estate has transferred.”
Max took the dog and disappeared toward the kitchen.
I pointed upstairs.
“You need to go talk to Alex.”
Richard didn’t move.
“You’re better at this.”
“I met him six minutes ago.”
“You got Max to approve our marriage in thirty seconds.”
“That was dinosaurs. Completely different diplomatic territory.”
For the first time, I saw uncertainty on Richard Lancaster’s face.
Not fear of an enemy.
Not concern about money.
Fear of failing his son.
And despite myself, my anger softened.
“Come on,” I said.
We found Alex sitting on the floor beside his bed, clutching a framed photograph.
A beautiful dark-haired woman smiled from it, standing between Richard and two much younger boys.
Isabella.
Alex’s mother.
When we entered, he immediately turned the photograph against his chest.
“I don’t want her.”
Richard stopped.
The words struck him harder than any insult could have.
“She is not replacing Mom,” he said.
“Then don’t marry her.”
“Alex—”
“You didn’t even know her!”
Something shifted in Richard’s face.
I noticed it immediately.
Alex noticed too.
His voice became quieter.
“Did you?”
Richard said nothing.
My stomach tightened.
I looked at him.
“Richard?”
He finally answered.
“I knew of Elena before tonight.”
The room seemed to contract around me.
“How?”
“Not now.”
“Actually,” I said, “now seems excellent.”
Alex’s eyes moved between us.
Richard’s expression closed.
“We will discuss it privately.”
A laugh escaped me, but there was no humor in it.
“Wonderful. Apparently we’ve already reached the secretive-husband portion of our marriage.”
I left before either of them could answer.
A woman named Teresa found me twenty minutes later standing in a guest bedroom larger than my old apartment.
She was in her late fifties, with silver threaded through her dark hair and a calm expression suggesting that Lancaster House had lost the ability to surprise her years ago.
“I’m told these are yours.”
Two guards carried my suitcases inside.
My entire existence looked embarrassing against the expensive rug.
“Thank you.”
Teresa waited until the men left.
Then she shut the door.
“You should know something.”
My pulse changed.
“Does everyone in this house begin conversations that way?”
A faint smile.
“Mr. Lancaster has not brought a woman into this house since Mrs. Lancaster died.”
I glanced toward the hall.
“He didn’t exactly bring me here for romance.”
“No.”
Something about her tone bothered me.
“You know about the arrangement?”
“I know enough.”
Which meant she knew more than I did.
I was beginning to understand that everyone in Lancaster House spoke in layers.
Teresa touched one suitcase.
“This was open when security brought it in.”
“It was?”
“The clasp is broken.”
I crouched.
The small brass lock had been cut.
Not broken by rain.
Cut.
I pulled the suitcase open.
Clothes.
A sweater.
Two books.
An old makeup bag.
Everything seemed normal.
Then I noticed the envelope.
White.
Dry.
Placed carefully on top of a blouse.
My heart began pounding.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Teresa’s expression changed instantly.
She reached toward the bedside phone.
“Don’t touch it.”
Richard’s voice came from the doorway.
I turned.
He crossed the room in three long steps, took one look at the envelope, and became a different man.
The exhausted father disappeared.
The quiet coffee-shop customer disappeared.
What remained was the man New York whispered about.
“Who handled these bags?”
“Marco and Ellis,” Teresa said.
“Where were they before that?”
“Security receiving.”
Richard removed his phone.
“Lock the property down.”
My throat went dry.
“Richard.”
He ignored me.
“No one enters or leaves. Check every camera from the gate to this floor. Pull the bus shelter footage too.”
“Richard.”
His eyes met mine.
“What is happening?”
He stared at the envelope.
“Don’t open it.”
That sentence guaranteed I was going to.
I grabbed it before he could stop me.
“Elena.”
I ripped it open.
Inside was a single photograph.
A man standing beside a shipping warehouse.
My breath stopped.
He was younger in the picture.
But I knew his face.
My father.
Thomas Hart.
Dead for eighteen years.
On the back, someone had written five words in black ink.
ASK LANCASTER WHY HE DIED.
The room spun.
I looked at Richard.
He did not look confused.
He did not ask who the man was.
He simply stood there with a terrible stillness.
“You know him,” I whispered.
Richard’s silence answered before his mouth did.
“Tell me.”
His jaw tightened.
“Your father worked for my family.”
Every part of me went cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“He was an accountant.”
“Yes.”
“He worked for a freight company in Jersey.”
Richard looked directly at me.
“Lancaster Meridian Shipping.”
I had never heard the full corporate ownership behind the name.
Suddenly the coffee shop.
The three months.
The bus shelter.
The impossible proposal.
Everything rearranged itself.
“You knew who I was.”
Richard said nothing.
“You didn’t just find me tonight.”
“Elena—”
“You were looking for me.”
“Yes.”
The word landed like a blow.
My chest tightened.
“How long?”
“Months.”
“Why?”
His gaze dropped briefly to the photograph of my father.
Then back to me.
“Because someone else started looking first.”
A chill moved through my skin.
“Who?”
Richard took one slow breath.
May you like
“The same people I believe killed your father.”
And somewhere deep beneath Lancaster House, an alarm suddenly began to scream.
