Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE HOSPITAL BED
“Say that again, Lily.”
Gabriel's voice was barely audible.
Lily looked frightened.
“The lady said Mommy wouldn't get better.”
Meredith shook her head.
“That is completely untrue.”
Gabriel didn't answer.
He was staring at the woman who had stood beside him at Isabella's memorial service.
The woman who had handed him tissues while he cried.
The woman who had told him to stop blaming himself for losing his family.
“Martin,” Gabriel said, “find Miss Rose.”
“Sir?”
“The woman downstairs from Lily's apartment. She helped this child get here. Find her before anyone else does.”
Meredith stepped forward.
“You have no right to detain me.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Then leave.”
She hesitated.
“Gabriel—”
“Leave, Meredith.”
For the first time in twenty years, she obeyed him without another word.
Gabriel turned back to Lily.
The little girl had stopped eating.
He noticed her fork resting on the plate.
“What's wrong, sweetheart?”
“Are you mad?”
“Not at you.”
“People get mad when I talk about Mommy.”
Gabriel felt his throat tighten.
“Then you've been talking to the wrong people.”
He pulled up a chair.
“Finish your dinner. We're going to find her.”
Twenty minutes later, Gabriel's black sedan traveled through Manhattan toward Queens.
Lily sat in the back beside him, holding a cardboard container of macaroni.
Martin drove.
He had located Rose Alvarez near the hotel's service entrance, where security had refused to let her enter.
Rose was seventy-one, with silver hair and a heavy brown coat.
She had helped Isabella care for Lily during the past two years.
When Martin contacted her through the apartment superintendent, Rose had confirmed that Isabella had been taken to St. Catherine's Hospital earlier that afternoon.
Gabriel had insisted they go there immediately.
Now he stared through the window.
Five years.
Five birthdays.
Five Christmas mornings.
Five years his daughter had lived less than an hour away.
“Gabriel?” Lily asked.
He turned.
“Yes?”
“Do you have kids?”
His chest tightened.
“I thought I didn't.”
“Oh.”
She considered that.
“Do you have toys?”
“A few.”
“What kind?”
He almost smiled.
“I honestly don't remember.”
Lily looked concerned.
“That's okay. I can show you.”
He turned toward the window before she could see his tears.
At the hospital, Dr. Maya Patel met them outside the cardiac care unit.
“Are you Isabella Bennett's family?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“I was supposed to be.”
The doctor studied him.
“She's awake, but extremely weak. She has a serious heart valve condition, and her heart is struggling.”
“Will she live?”
“We're evaluating her for a procedure. Right now, we're stabilizing her.”
Gabriel glanced at Lily.
“Can she see her mother?”
“Briefly. But please don't overwhelm Isabella.”
Gabriel nodded.
Then they entered Room 418.
Isabella Bennett lay beneath a white hospital blanket.
Her once-bright brown hair was loosely gathered against the pillow.
Her face was pale.
A heart monitor sounded quietly beside her.
For several seconds, Gabriel couldn't move.
He remembered her laughing at the piano.
Standing barefoot in his kitchen.
Falling asleep against his shoulder while rain struck the windows.
He had imagined those memories would be all he ever had.
Now she was breathing ten feet away.
“Mommy!”
Lily ran toward the bed.
Isabella opened her eyes.
“Baby…”
Lily climbed carefully onto the chair beside her.
“I found him!”
Isabella's smile disappeared.
She slowly looked toward the doorway.
Gabriel stepped forward.
“Isabella.”
Her expression changed from surprise to fear.
“No.”
“It's me.”
“No, Gabriel. You can't be here.”
He stopped.
“Why?”
She looked toward Lily.
“Sweetheart, will you wait outside with Miss Rose?”
Rose had just arrived at the doorway.
Lily hesitated.
“Are you mad?”
Isabella touched her cheek.
“Never at you, baby.”
Rose gently guided Lily into the hallway.
The door closed.
Gabriel approached the bed.
“I thought you were dead.”
Isabella looked at him.
Then she gave a small, disbelieving laugh.
“Dead?”
“Meredith told me you died after Lily was born.”
Isabella's expression became unreadable.
“She told you that?”
“Yes.”
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Isabella turned toward the window.
“She told me you knew about Lily.”
Gabriel felt the floor disappear beneath him.
“What?”
“She said you knew we were alive.”
“Isabella—”
“She said you held our daughter the night she was born.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“I never saw her.”
“She said you came to the hospital. That you looked at Lily and decided you didn't want either of us.”
Gabriel gripped the edge of the bed.
“That's a lie.”
Isabella's eyes filled.
“I waited for you.”
His breathing became uneven.
“I didn't know.”
“I wrote letters.”
“I never received them.”
“I went to your office when Lily was six months old.”
Gabriel stared.
“My security team told me you were gone.”
Isabella pressed a hand against her chest.
“I stood outside that building for three hours. Your people wouldn't let me through.”
Gabriel lowered himself into a chair.
For five years, he had mourned a woman who had been trying to reach him.
And she had raised their daughter believing he had abandoned them.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
Isabella looked at him.
“Sorry doesn't give Lily those years back.”
“I know.”
“She learned to walk without you. She learned to talk without you. She spent her last birthday asking why other children had fathers.”
Gabriel covered his face.
“I know.”
“No,” Isabella said quietly. “You don't. Not yet.”
He looked up.
She reached toward the bedside drawer.
Inside was a worn blue envelope.
“I kept this because I thought one day Lily might ask why.”
She handed it to him.
Gabriel recognized the embossed letterhead.
The Ashford Family Foundation.
Inside was a notice accusing Isabella of stealing money from a children's music program.
At the bottom was a warning that any further contact with Gabriel's businesses would be reported as harassment.
Gabriel looked at the date.
Three weeks after Lily's birth.
“This came from my office?”
Isabella nodded.
“And there were others.”
He examined the signature.
It was not his.
But the authorization stamp belonged to his executive department.
“Isabella, I never approved this.”
She looked directly at him.
“Then someone didn't just separate us, Gabriel.”
May you like
Her voice trembled.
“Someone used my name to steal from children.”
