Chapter 1 - The Choice in the Rain
On the morning I was supposed to marry the woman everyone called perfect, I looked out the limousine window and saw my ex-wife standing in the rain with a little girl who had my eyes. In that instant, five hundred wedding guests, a multimillion-dollar family alliance, and everything I'd spent my life protecting became meaningless. The child staring back at me looked exactly like the daughter I never knew I had.
My hand reached for the limousine door before my mind had time to catch up.
Cold rain poured over Fifth Avenue as horns blared and umbrellas collided in every direction. Then I saw her.
Mave Whitlock.
Three years earlier, she had disappeared from my life without a goodbye, without a letter, and without giving me a single reason. I'd spent every day since then wondering what had happened.
She looked so different now.
Her faded beige coat hung loosely from her shoulders as she shielded a cheap plastic folder full of job applications from the rain like it was the only hope she had left. Damp strands of blonde hair clung to her face, and exhaustion seemed to weigh down every step.
Then the little girl in her arms turned toward me.
My heart stopped.
Those pale gray eyes weren't just similar to mine.
They were mine.
Every member of the Hail family carried those unmistakable gray eyes. My grandmother always said they could "see through stone." There was no chance I was imagining it.
"Boss," Wesley warned from the driver's seat.
Beside me, my fiancée, Coraline Ashford, lowered the mirror she'd been using beneath her bridal veil.
"Garrett," she asked quietly, "what are you doing?"
I didn't answer.
I stepped into the rain.
Within seconds my tuxedo was soaked as I crossed the busy street. Behind me, the line of black luxury vehicles carrying the Ashford family remained perfectly still.
Everyone knew what today's wedding really was.
It wasn't about love.
It was a business alliance between two powerful families whose fortunes depended on keeping the peace.
Walking away threatened everything.
I kept walking anyway.
The crowd instinctively stepped aside.
When Mave looked up and recognized me, the expression on her face shattered me.
First came shock.
Then fear.
Then years of pain I knew nothing about.
She backed away until she reached the traffic light, pulling the little girl closer.
"It's okay, Posie," she whispered, kissing her forehead. "Mommy's got you."
Even hearing the little girl's name stirred something deep inside me.
I stopped a few feet away.
Every instinct told me to hold them both.
Instead, I stayed where I was.
Something in Mave's eyes warned me that one wrong move would make her run again.
Rain poured between us while Wesley and two security men quietly positioned themselves behind me.
Then Coraline stepped out of the limousine.
"Mave," I said, barely recognizing my own voice after all these years.
She glanced at my tuxedo, the waiting guards, and the growing crowd already recording everything with their phones.
"You shouldn't be here," she said softly. "You're supposed to be getting married."
There was no anger in her voice.
Only resignation.
Somehow, that hurt even more.
My eyes drifted back to the little girl.
"How old is she?"
Mave immediately stiffened.
"Don't."
"How old?"
"She isn't your concern."
The words hit harder than any punch.
"Why did you leave?" I asked. "Why did you disappear without telling me?"
Tears filled her eyes.
"I didn't leave because I wanted to."
I forgot how to breathe.
"Your mother made sure I had no choice."
"My... mother?"
Before she could explain, Coraline's voice sliced through the rain.
"Garrett."
She walked toward us, lifting her wedding gown above the puddles. Her eyes slowly traveled from Mave's worn coat to her soaked shoes... then settled on little Posie's unmistakable gray eyes.
For just a second, I saw calculation replace confidence.
"Five hundred guests are waiting," Coraline said coldly. "My father is waiting. And you're humiliating both our families over some woman and her bastard child."
Mave flinched.
She never lowered her head.
I turned toward Coraline as every conversation around us died.
Every phone remained pointed in our direction.
"Do not call her that."
Coraline smiled.
"Then tell me, Garrett..."
"What exactly should I call her?"
Coraline’s question hung in the rain like a blade no one dared touch.
For a moment, the whole of Fifth Avenue seemed to fall silent. Horns blurred into the distance. Rain drummed against awnings and car roofs. The little girl in Mave’s arms tucked her face into her mother’s neck, frightened by the cold and by all the adults staring as though she had stepped out of a locked room no one wanted opened.
I looked at Coraline, and for the first time that morning, I saw her clearly.
Not as the woman chosen for me by families and boardrooms. Not as the elegant bride whose photograph had already been sent to every society page in Manhattan. Not as the Ashford daughter whose father controlled the shipping routes my company desperately needed.
I saw her as a stranger.
A cruel, calculating stranger who would never understand what was happening inside my chest.
"You will call her nothing," I said, my voice dangerously low. "Because you will never speak to her. You will never look at her again."
Coraline’s confident smile faltered. The veil whipped around her face in the wind. "Excuse me?"
I didn't repeat myself. I took off my soaked tuxedo jacket and stepped toward Mave. She flinched, but I didn't reach for her. Instead, I gently draped the heavy, warm fabric over little Posie, shielding her from the freezing downpour.
Posie peeked out from beneath the dark wool.
Her gray eyes locked onto mine.
"I'm Garrett," I whispered.
"I'm Posie," she whispered back, her tiny voice trembling. "My shoes are wet."
"I know, sweetheart. We're going to fix that."
I stood up and turned to my head of security. "Wesley. Open my car."
"Garrett, you cannot be serious!" Coraline screamed, dropping the hem of her million-dollar gown into the dirty puddle. "If you put them in that car, my father will bankrupt Hail Industries by Monday morning! I will destroy you!"
I looked back at the woman I was supposed to marry.
"Tell your father to try," I said softly.
I placed my hand gently on Mave's lower back. She was shaking violently, caught between exhaustion and terror. But when I guided her toward the black SUV waiting behind the limousine, she didn't resist. She was simply too tired to keep running.
As the heavy armored door slammed shut, separating us from the rain, the paparazzi, and my furious ex-fiancée, the engine roared to life.
I looked at the little girl sitting on Mave's lap.
My daughter.
May you like
The wedding was over.
But the war was just beginning.
