Chapter 8
Declan called eighteen times that day.
I answered none.
At 9:14 that evening, after the girls were asleep, my doorbell rang.
Amelia looked through the security camera.
“You have got to be kidding.”
Declan stood outside.
Alone.
No driver.
No attorney.
No jacket.
He looked like he had spent the entire day trying not to lose his mind.
“Don’t let him in,” Amelia said.
I should have listened.
Instead, I opened the door.
Declan stared past me into the house.
Children’s drawings covered one wall.
Three tiny pairs of shoes sat near the staircase.
A plastic tiara lay upside down on the rug.
His face tightened.
“I want a DNA test.”
I folded my arms.
“Good evening to you too.”
“I’m not accusing you.”
“That sentence has an unfortunate history.”
Pain crossed his face.
“I deserve that.”
I hadn’t expected it.
“I want the test because if they’re mine, I need certainty.
Legal certainty.
Medical certainty.
I need…” He stopped.
“I need something objective because apparently everything I thought happened five years ago is wrong.”
I studied him.
“What do you remember?”
“You left.”
“Yes.”
“We argued about the settlement.”
“Yes.”
“You stopped speaking to me except through attorneys.”
“No.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“I never received a call about pregnancy.”
“I made several.”
“No texts.”
“I sent several.”
“No ultrasound.”
“I sent it.”
He looked at me.
“Did you email?”
“Yes.”
“Which address?”
“Your personal one.”
His expression changed.
“What?”
“My personal Hawthorne account?”
“Yes.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Who had access?”
I almost laughed.
“You.
Presumably.”
He didn’t laugh.
“Declan?”
“My assistant.”
“Martin?”
“No.
Before Martin.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
Then he whispered the name.
“
Eleanor.
”
His mother.
I stared at him.
“No.”
Declan’s face had become unreadable.
“My mother had access to the family accounts.
All of them.
She insisted on overseeing cybersecurity after my father’s medical records leaked years earlier.”
I shook my head.
“That doesn’t mean—”
“She hated you.”
“She disliked me.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“She hated you.”
That was true.
Eleanor Hawthorne had never shouted.
Women like Eleanor did not shout.
They destroyed people with table placement, invitations, polite exclusions, and carefully sharpened compliments.
When Declan proposed, Eleanor told me:
“Cassidy is charming.
Very bright.
Of course, marriage into a family like ours can be… educational.”
When I continued working after the wedding, she told her friends I had “a touching attachment to employment.”