Chapter 10

He remembered, suddenly, the look on her face, years ago, when she'd told him clear and bright, Damon, the reason I'm marrying you is you. Just you.

And this paper, this walk-away, landed across his face like a silent slap.

"Does it sink in yet?" Eleanor said. "She isn't bluffing. She's done. Do you get it now?"

"Where does she get off!" Damon was on his feet like something had stepped on a nerve. "Who the hell does she think she is? Taking my daughter and just leaving? In her dreams."

The panic was sharper now. He needed to do something. He needed to get control back.

"She wants to play? I'll play. Let's see how long she can hide."

He pulled out his phone and dialed his special assistant.

"Pull every resource we have. I want Magpie and Wren located. I don't care if you turn the planet upside down. Find them. Now."

He ended the call. The room fell into an odd stillness.

Eleanor watched him. There was nothing in her eyes now but undisguised disappointment. Exhaustion.

Damon tugged his tie again, trying to shake the feeling that kept circling him.

And then he thought of the recorder.

When Celine had wept and sworn it was a fake, his head had been too loud to think. He hadn't checked. He hadn't even considered checking.

A thought slid into his mind like a splinter.

What if it was real.

He dialed another number immediately. "I need you to verify an audio file. The one from the kidnapping a few days ago. I want a full technical analysis. Fastest possible turnaround."

The wait was unlike anything he'd ever been through.

He couldn't sit, couldn't stand. Time dragged.

Preliminary feedback started coming in, piece by piece.

"Mr. Sterling. Regarding the recording, probability of fabrication is low."

He remembered the look on Magpie's face when she'd held the recorder out to him.

He remembered how, right in front of her, he had defended the woman who might have tried to hurt his daughter.

His phone buzzed. The caregiver at the clinic, the one watching Celine.

"Mr. Sterling, Miss Vance is awake, but she's very agitated. She's crying, asking for you. She's saying her stomach hurts…"

Damon cut the call off mid-sentence and slammed the phone facedown on the desk.

The study was silent. Only the sound of his breathing, hard and uneven.

Other findings came in. One after another.

"Miss Vance's pregnancy reports show irregularities. The attending physician received a large unexplained transfer recently. Her social history is complicated. During her relationship with you, she had close interactions with multiple other men…"

Every one of her tears, every moment of fragile heartbreak, had been a performance.

And for this performance, he had hurt Magpie over and over again.

He thought of how he had drained his daughter's trust for this woman.

How he had wrecked Magpie's career for this woman.

How, after Celine had tried to drown his daughter, he had stood there and accused Magpie of being cruel.

He grabbed his keys and tore out of the estate like a cornered animal.

He drove straight to the clinic and walked into Celine's suite without knocking.

Celine was propped against the headboard, pale, tears still on her lashes.

"Damon, you're finally—"

He shoved the phone in her face. The test report was up on the screen.

"The recording is real. Do you have anything to say?"

Celine's pupils shrank. The color drained from her skin.

"No. That's a fake. Magpie framed me—"

"Framed you?" He closed the distance between them. Violence radiated off him. "And the fake pregnancy? And the other men you've had going this whole time? Did she frame you for all of that, too?"

Every question drained more blood from her face. She crumpled against the pillows.

He looked at this face he had once thought delicate, fragile, deserving of protection. Now it was just dishonesty, dressed up.

He bent close. His voice came through his teeth.

"Celine. Listen to me. You're going to pay for every single thing you've done. Starting today, there is no career for you in entertainment. No room for you in Manhattan. Get on your knees and pray I don't find the rest. Because if I do, you'll wish the worst was just your name in the tabloids."

He didn't look at her again. He walked out.

After dealing with Celine, Damon drove to the Greenwich house, the one he and Magpie had lived in.

He pushed open the heavy front door. Silence and dark and emptiness.

No small, sticky voice calling Daddy. No soft sounds of Magpie somewhere in the background.

He turned the lights on. The chandelier came up over all the familiar luxury. None of it was alive.

Wren's favorite stuffed animal was on the sofa. A picture book left halfway open on the coffee table.

In the corner, the piano was open, her sheet music still propped up on the stand…

Traces of them were everywhere. Every one of them reminding him that this had been a home.

Now it was him, alone.

The plane taxied along the runway and pulled to a stop.

Outside the small oval window, the airport looked foreign.

Magpie unbuckled her seatbelt. Wren rubbed sleep from her eyes. "Mommy, are we there?"

"We're here." Magpie took a long breath, lifted her daughter, and moved with the flow of passengers toward the gate.

Arrivals was crowded.

Her eyes swept the crowd and almost immediately locked on the tall, lean figure leaning against a railing.

Kieran Ashford. He saw her the same instant. He crossed the distance in a few long strides. He didn't scoop her up and spin her around the way he used to. He simply folded her and the child in her arms into a careful, quiet hug. His voice came low, near her ear. "You've had a long road, Mags."