Chapter 2 - Her Mother Had Come For Richard
Claire forgot the champagne dripping from her hair.
Forgot the frosting smeared across Victoria Hale’s face.
Forgot the two hundred guests staring.
The woman standing between the ballroom doors had not changed as much as
Claire expected.
Evelyn Mercer was sixty-two now.
Her dark hair had silvered at the temples.
Her posture remained straight.
Her expression remained impossible to read.
Claire had not seen her mother in seven years.
Not since the morning Evelyn left a note on the kitchen table and
disappeared from Chicago without saying goodbye.
Now she walked into Richard Vale’s family gala with two men in black
suits behind her.
Richard released Claire’s arm.
His face lost color.
“Evelyn.”
Claire looked between them.
“You know where she’s been?”
Richard said nothing.
Victoria wiped cake from her cheek.
“Who is this woman?”
Evelyn finally looked at her.
“Someone your husband hoped would stay gone.”
Victoria stopped.
“My husband?”
Claire’s heart kicked.
Richard was Claire’s husband.
Victoria was his mother.
The sentence made no sense.
Then Evelyn corrected herself.
“Your son.”
Her eyes returned to Richard.
“You told Claire I abandoned her.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
Richard stepped forward.
“This isn’t the place.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“You made this the place when your family decided to humiliate my
daughter in front of a ballroom.”
Claire whispered:
“Why did you leave?”
Evelyn looked at her for the first time.
Pain moved across her face.
“I didn’t.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Claire heard herself laugh once.
It sounded broken.
“You disappeared.”
“I was forced out.”
Richard said:
“That’s not true.”
One of the men behind Evelyn opened a leather case.
He removed a thick folder.
Evelyn held it out.
“Then explain your signature.”
Richard did not take it.
Claire did.
The first page was a private settlement agreement dated seven years
earlier.
The second carried Richard’s signature as witness.
The third contained Claire’s mother’s name.
And beside a payment amount large enough to change a life were four
words:
NO CONTACT WITH CLAIRE MERCER.
May you like
Claire looked at Richard.
“You knew.”
