Chapter 2 - THE SIGNATURE SHE NEVER WROTE
Gideon had built an empire on reading people.
He could tell when a rival was bluffing, when a business partner was hiding debt, when an apology concealed a threat.
But the woman standing in his study was not bluffing.
Her anger was too raw.
Her grief was too specific.
And when she looked at the forged signature, she didn't look like someone who had been caught lying.
She looked like someone being forced to relive the worst moment of her life.
“I want a DNA test,” Mallerie said.
Gideon nodded.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Tonight.”
He glanced at the clock.
It was nearly midnight.
“I can arrange for a medical professional to come here.”
“Independent.”
He looked at her.
“Of course.”
“And I choose the laboratory.”
Gideon nodded again.
“Agreed.”
Mallerie stared at him suspiciously.
“You're agreeing to everything.”
“Would you prefer an argument?”
“I'd prefer to know why a man with your reputation is being reasonable.”
Gideon's expression darkened.
“Because someone may have stolen my son from his mother and sold him to me.”
The word sold hung between them.
Mallerie gripped the edge of the desk.
“You paid for him?”
Gideon looked sick.
“I paid the agency's fees. Medical expenses. Legal expenses. I believed everything was legitimate.”
“How much?”
He hesitated.
“Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
Mallerie stepped backward.
Almost half a million dollars.
For a baby she had been told was dead.
She pressed a hand over her mouth.
Gideon moved toward her.
She raised her other hand.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
For several seconds, she struggled to breathe.
Then she asked:
“Where is the woman who ran the agency?”
Gideon's jaw tightened.
“That's what we're going to find out.”
Teresa brought Owen into the study twenty minutes later.
He had refused his bottle.
Refused his crib.
Refused every attempt to settle him.
The moment he saw Mallerie, he stretched toward her.
She took him without thinking.
His tiny body relaxed against her chest.
Gideon watched.
Something in his expression broke.
“For ten months,” he said quietly, “I've wondered why he cries so much.”
Mallerie looked up.
“What?”
“He has good days. But sometimes nothing comforts him. Doctors say he's healthy. Teresa says he's sensitive.”
Owen pressed his cheek against Mallerie's collarbone.
She closed her eyes.
She wanted to believe he recognized her.
Wanted it so badly it frightened her.
But she knew babies could respond to unfamiliar adults for many reasons. She would not turn his behavior into proof.
Only the test could do that.
Still, when he curled his fingers around her bracelet, she began to cry.
Gideon looked away.
He understood grief.
But this was different.
He had spent ten months loving Owen as his son.
Mallerie had spent ten months mourning a child who might have been alive the entire time.
Neither of them knew what the morning would take away.
At 2:15 a.m., Gideon's security chief, Adrian Cole, entered.
“We identified the man from the ballroom.”
Gideon stood.
“Who is he?”
“His name is Peter Doss. Former private security contractor. He was paid to enter the hotel and retrieve the child.”
“By whom?”
“Payment came through a shell company.”
Gideon's eyes narrowed.
“Which one?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Northbridge Medical Consulting.”
Mallerie looked up sharply.
“What did you say?”
Adrian repeated the name.
Her face drained.
“That company paid my hospital bills.”
Gideon turned toward her.
“What hospital?”
“St. Catherine's Medical Center. Brooklyn.”
The same hospital where she had delivered her baby.
Adrian looked at Gideon.
“Sir, there's something else.”
“What?”
“Northbridge Medical Consulting was dissolved six weeks ago.”
Gideon went still.
“And its registered director?”
Adrian swallowed.
“Dr. Samuel Kessler.”
May you like
Mallerie's breath caught.
Because Dr. Kessler was the physician who had told her that her baby was dead.
