“I’m not deciding anything,” I said quietly. “I’m trying to understand why they have my face.”
At 4:18, I called my assistant.
“Cancel tonight.”
“Your engagement announcement?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother is already welcoming guests.”
“I don’t care.”
I ended the call.
I didn’t yet know whether those boys were truly mine.
I only knew I would not marry another woman until I discovered why Elena vanished—and who had convinced me she chose to leave.
PART 2
At 4:21 that afternoon, three minutes after I cancelled my engagement announcement, my mother called.
I watched her name glow across the screen of my phone.
ELEANOR MERCER.
I let it ring.
Then I turned the phone facedown on the leather seat beside me and stared through the tinted window of the SUV.
My phone vibrated against the leather four times before going dark, only to light up again two seconds later. I picked it up, silenced the ringer, and dropped it into the cup holder.
I turned to my driver. “Take us to the Tribeca building.”
Ten minutes later, I stood outside the heavy oak door of my penthouse. I used my key code, pushed the door open quietly, and stepped into the entryway.
The apartment smelled of cedar, fresh paint, and rain. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the gray Manhattan skyline, but my gaze went straight to the living room.
The four boys were sitting cross-legged on the oversized cashmere rug. Leo and Liam were quietly racing two small metal cars across the floorboards. Luke and Logan were curled up together on the corner of the sofa, fast asleep, exhausted by a world that had been far too cold to them.
And then there was Elena.
She stood by the marble kitchen island, holding a warm mug of tea. She had taken off her server’s apron, wearing only a faded black sweater and jeans. Her hair was pulled back, her posture rigid, her posture defensive—a woman who had spent six years waiting for the next blow to fall.
When she heard my footsteps, her head snapped up.
“Julian,” she whispered, her voice tight with caution.
“They’re sleeping,” I said quietly, stopping ten feet away. “I won’t wake them.”
She set the mug down, her green eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned through the years between us. “Why are you here? You gave us the key. You said no questions tonight.”
“I lied,” I admitted softly. “I tried to drive away, Elena. I tried to sit in my car and pretend I didn’t just see four boys who look like my childhood photographs. But I can’t.”
Elena’s jaw tightened. “They don’t concern you.”
“They have my jaw, Elena. They have my eyes. They sweep their hair back with their right hand and touch the back of their neck with their left when they’re anxious.” I took a step closer, my voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “Don’t tell me they don’t concern me.”
Tears welling in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She crossed her arms, folding into herself. “Six years ago, you made your choice, Julian. You chose your family’s empire. You chose your mother’s expectations. You left me in a hospital room in Queens with a hundred-dollar bill and a note telling me to never contact you again.”
A cold, sickening dread pool formed in the pit of my stomach.
“What did you just say?” I asked, every muscle in my body locking up.
“You heard me,” she spat, her voice laced with ancient bitterness. “You sent your family’s attorney to my room the day after I found out I was pregnant. He handed me an envelope from your mother’s trust, told me you were engaged to Serena Vance, and said that if I ever tried to bring a scandal to the Mercer name, you would use every judge in New York to destroy me.”
“I never sent an attorney,” I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “I never signed a note. I never left you money.”
Elena let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“Elena, look at me!” I stepped right up to the island, gripping the edge of the stone. “Six years ago, I came home to our apartment and found it empty. My mother showed me a signed lease termination and a bank transfer. She told me you took two hundred thousand dollars from the Mercer foundation and moved to London with your ex-boyfriend. She told me you aborted the baby!”
Elena went dead still. The color drained from her face so fast I thought she was going to faint.
“She… she told you I aborted them?” Elena whispered.
“I spent three months drinking myself to death in a hotel in Paris because I thought the woman I loved destroyed our child and walked away for cash!” My chest heaved as six years of buried grief exploded to the surface. “I didn’t propose to Serena Vance for six years because every time I looked at a ring, I saw you!”
Elena stared at me, her lips trembling. The six-year wall of hatred and betrayal between us began to crack, exposing the terrifying truth underneath.
Before she could speak, my phone rang again. Not my personal cell—the emergency line linked to the penthouse security panel at the front desk.
I tapped the screen. The doorman’s voice came through, strained and nervous.
“Mr. Mercer… I’m so sorry to bother you, sir. But your mother, Mrs. Eleanor Mercer, is downstairs. She has two private security guards with her, and she’s demanding access to your unit.”
PART 3
I looked at Elena. The panic in her eyes returned instantly, instinctual and sharp. She looked toward the sofa where Luke and Logan were sleeping, moving to stand between the hallway and her children.
“Julian… don’t let her near them,” Elena whispered, her voice shaking. “Please.”
“She will never touch them,” I said.
I tapped the doorman’s intercom. “Send her up alone. Tell her security stays in the lobby, or I’ll have the NYPD clear the building.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ninety seconds later, the private elevator chimed.
The doors slid open, and Eleanor Mercer stepped into the foyer.
She was immaculate, as she always was. A double-breasted cream cashmere coat, a strand of Mikimoto pearls, her silver-blonde hair coiffed into a flawless chignon. She looked like old New York royalty—a woman who spent her life bending reality to fit her desires.
“Julian,” she began, her tone a masterclass in controlled maternal disappointment. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done tonight? The Vance family is sitting in the Conservatory. The press is outside. Serena is in tears, and Arthur Vance is threatening to pull his firm’s investment from our European expansion—”
Her voice cut off mid-sentence.
She had walked past the entryway, her eyes sweeping over the marble kitchen—and landing directly on Elena.