Chapter 16
Vanessa looked ashamed.
“I saw their age, the resemblance, the way you reacted when Lily asked something about Chicago.”
“What did she ask?”
“Whether their father lived here.”
I remembered the day.
Lily had asked because we had been discussing the move.
My stomach twisted.
“You heard that?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“I went back to my hotel.”
Vanessa drew a slow breath.
“I stared at the photograph half the night.”
“And decided to send it.”
“Yes.”
“Why not call me?”
“Would you have answered?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
“Why not call Adrian?”
“I tried.”
My body stiffened.
“He was in a meeting.”
“That sounds like him.”
“I could have waited.”
She looked down.
“But I lost my nerve.”
“So you wrote three words on a photograph.”
“They are his.”
I remembered the handwriting.
“You knew what those words would do.”
“Yes.”
“Then you vanished.”
She nodded.
“Because after I sent it, I realized what I had set in motion.”
I waited.
“Adrian would discover he had children.”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
“He would find you.”
I almost laughed.
“He did.”
“And I knew the moment he saw them, he would never be able to pretend they meant nothing.”
“That does not explain disappearing.”
Vanessa took a long breath.
“I didn’t want to be there when he came for answers.”
“Why?”
“Because the only honest answer was that I had known you were gone for six years and had never asked him whether he had tried to find you.”
I frowned.
“That wasn’t your responsibility.”
“No.”
She looked tired.
“But guilt doesn’t care whose responsibility something was.”
A shadow crossed the chapel entrance.
Adrian.
He remained outside as promised.
Vanessa saw him through the glass.
Her expression changed.
“He looks older.”
“He is.”
“So are we.”
I almost smiled.
Then she reached across the space between us.
She did not touch me.
She simply placed something on the pew.
A folded piece of paper.
“I wrote this six years ago.”
I stared at it.
“What is it?”
“A letter to Adrian.”
My pulse quickened.
“I never sent it.”
“What does it say?”
“That he was an idiot.”
Despite myself, a laugh escaped me.
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“And that if he loved you, he should go after you before his pride ruined the rest of his life.”
I did not pick it up.
“Why give it to me?”
“Because whether you forgive him or not, you deserve to know that you were never second to me.”