She lifts her chin. “Daughters. Did they tell you that much?”
“Yes.”
She swallows.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
Her mouth stills.
“Evie.”
Her eyes flash. “What answer would satisfy you?”
“Truth.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“It usually is.”
She leans back in the chair carefully. One hand flattening for half a second against the armrest before she remembers not to steady herself. Pregnancy has started changing the physics of her body.
“You already know the answer,” she says.
“I know several answers.”
“Then choose your favorite. Men in this house seem to enjoy constructing narratives and calling them decisions.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasmine.”
I understand that much. The knowledge. The timing. The final private room inside a house that has taken every corridor from her.
I glance at the scan. “It’s not only yours.”
Her expression sharpens. “No?”
“No.”
“How convenient for you.”
“It’s fact.”
“Fact,” she repeats. “Another one of your beautiful, clean words.”
“Would you prefer a softer one?”
“I would prefer one thing in this house to have belonged to me before someone placed it in a file and routed it to your desk.” She sighs heavily and looks down. “I was going to tell you.”
She might have. Eventually. When her body made secrecy absurd. When strategy required it. When fear became less useful than calculation.
“I know,” I say. “You’re carrying my children. That’s permanent. You understand?”
Her eyes hold mine.
She understands.
Chapter 27
