Chapter 3 - Forty-Three Minutes
Dr. Jonathan Mercer arrived twelve minutes later carrying a black medical bag and the expression of a man who had spent twenty years being ignored by Ethan Harrington.
“You nearly died,” he said after checking Ethan’s lungs.
“I noticed.”
“You need a hospital.”
“No.”
“You experienced a severe asthma attack after repeated warning signs. Your blood oxygen was dangerously low.”
“I have meetings.”
“You have impaired judgment.”
Ethan sat on the edge of the leather sofa while Dr. Mercer examined the bruise on his temple.
Across the office, Lily colored at the conference table under Allison’s supervision.
Maria stood near the door with her arms folded.
She had refused to leave Lily alone. She had also refused Ethan’s offer to take them home in his car.
Ethan had told security not to let them leave until the doctor finished.
Maria had informed him that this was unlawful detention.
Ethan had released the elevator.
She had remained anyway.
Neither of them admitted why.
Dr. Mercer lowered his voice.
“You should not be alone tonight.”
“I have staff.”
“I said not alone. Staff members are not people, as you have repeatedly demonstrated.”
Ethan ignored him.
“Give me twenty minutes.”
Dr. Mercer followed Ethan’s gaze toward Maria.
Recognition appeared in his eyes. He had known Ethan since university.
“That Maria?” he whispered.
Ethan nodded.
Dr. Mercer closed his bag.
“You have ten.”
He walked toward Maria, introduced himself, thanked Lily, and left after making Ethan promise to call if the symptoms returned.
The promise was technically a lie.
When the door closed, Ethan instructed Allison to take Lily to the private dining room for hot chocolate.
“No,” Maria said.
“I’ll stay with her,” Allison offered.
Maria hesitated.
Lily held up her coloring book. “I made the cloud building.”
A black shape occupied most of the page. At the top, a yellow square represented Ethan’s office.
“Mr. Buttons wants marshmallows,” Lily added.
Maria knelt.
“Stay with Miss Reed. Do not leave the room.”
“Like a mouse.”
“Yes.”
Allison led Lily away.
Maria waited until the door closed.
“You had no right to involve her.”
“She involved herself when she kept me alive.”
“She is three.”
“And because she is three, she told the truth before anyone could teach her not to.”
Maria flinched.
Ethan regretted the words immediately.
He stood slowly.
“Tell me about the baby.”
“No.”
“Maria.”
“You cannot command this story out of me.”
“I’m not commanding.”
“You don’t know how to do anything else.”
Ethan turned away and looked at the city.
“I would have come.”
“You didn’t.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I called your office.”
“My father controlled my calls.”
“I went to his house.”
“My father hated you.”
“I know.”
Ethan faced her again.
“He told me you had accepted money.”
Maria went still.
“He told me you demanded two hundred thousand dollars to disappear.”
“I never asked for money.”
“He showed me a copy of a bank transfer.”
“My father had no bank account with two hundred thousand dollars in it.”
“The transfer was supposedly to an account in your name.”
“It was false.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
Ethan rubbed his face.
“At the time, I believed him because it hurt less than believing you had simply stopped loving me.”
Maria’s anger flickered.
“You chose the version that protected you.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised them both.
Ethan continued.
“I chose it because if you were cruel, then I didn’t have to ask whether I had failed you.”
Maria walked to the window.
For a long moment, only the soft sound of snow against the glass filled the room.
“I found out I was pregnant three days after you left for London,” she said.
Ethan did not move.
“I called your hotel. They transferred me to your office. Your assistant said you were unavailable. I left messages. Then your number changed.”
“My father canceled it.”
“I wrote you a letter.”
“What did it say?”
“That I was scared. That I didn’t expect anything from you. That I wanted you to know you were going to be a father.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“I gave it to your father.”
“He never gave it to me.”
“He read it in front of me.”
Ethan opened his eyes.
Maria’s voice became quieter.
“He said you already knew. He said you had told him to make the problem disappear.”
“I never said that.”
“He said you were engaged to someone suitable.”
“I wasn’t.”
“He showed me newspaper photographs of you with Charlotte Whitmore.”
“She attended three events with me. Our families wanted an engagement. It never happened.”
Maria looked down.
“I was twenty-two. I had sixty dollars and nowhere to stay. Your father offered me money.”
“The transfer.”
“I refused it.”
“What happened?”
“He told security to remove me.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“I went back to Milwaukee. My aunt let me sleep on her couch. I found work at a grocery store. I saved everything.”
She pressed one hand to her stomach as if her body still remembered.
“At thirty-one weeks, I started bleeding.”
Ethan’s breathing changed.
“The doctors tried to stop the labor. They couldn’t.”
“What was his name?”
Maria’s eyes filled.
“Gabriel.”
Ethan turned away.
His son had possessed a name for eleven years, and Ethan had never known he existed.
“He weighed three pounds,” Maria said. “He had dark hair. His fingers were very long.”
Ethan pressed his fist against his mouth.
“The nurse asked if I wanted to hold him.”
Maria’s voice broke.
“I said yes because I thought you would come. I kept looking at the door.”
Ethan’s shoulders shook once.
“He lived forty-three minutes,” she said. “I held him for forty-two.”
“Who held him for the other minute?”
“No one. They took him to help him breathe.”
Ethan gripped the edge of the desk.
“I wrote another letter after the funeral.”
“What did you say?”
“That I hated you.”
He nodded as if he deserved no less.
“I told you his name. I told you where he was buried. I told you I never wanted to see you again.”
“Where did you send it?”
“To your Chicago office.”
“I never received it.”
Maria’s eyes sharpened.
“Someone signed for it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan crossed to his computer.
“What date?”
Maria told him.
He opened an old corporate archive system and entered the year.
The records were incomplete. Harrington Global had changed mail vendors twice and relocated its executive offices.
But Ethan did not become a billionaire by accepting incomplete answers.
He called the head of internal security.
“I need archived visitor logs, mailroom records, and private correspondence from eleven years ago,” he said. “Everything connected to Maria Delgado.”
Maria stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because my father is dead,” Ethan said. “But someone who worked for him may still be alive.”
“Ethan, leave it.”
“No.”
“This will not bring Gabriel back.”
“No.”
“It will not give us those years.”
“No.”
“Then what do you think it will do?”
May you like
Ethan looked at her.
“It will tell me who decided I had no right to know my son.”
