I declined.
Advised both women that Elena’s information is confidential.
Patricia became angry.
Vanessa asked whether Elena had made any claim against Adrian’s future inheritance.
My pulse pounded.
I turned another page.
A photograph slid onto the desk.
It showed my mother standing outside my father’s office.
Beside her was Vanessa.
The photograph was dated almost four years before Vanessa and I met at a charity dinner in Toronto.
I sat completely still.
Our first meeting had been a lie.
I remembered it clearly.
She had been visiting Toronto for a corporate conference.
We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance.
She laughed when I told her I was from Florida.
She said she had only been to Miami twice.
She said she knew nobody there.
I had believed her.
My phone rang again.
Vanessa.
This time, I answered.
“Where are you?”
Her voice was tight.
“In Dad’s study.”
Silence.
Then:
“Why?”
I looked at the photograph.
“You tell me.”
“What?”
“I found a picture of you with my mother.”
Nothing.
Not even breathing.
“Four years before we met.”
“Adrian—”
“So you did know Elena.”
“No.”
“You knew about her.”
“That’s different.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“How?”
“I can explain.”
“Do it.”
She began crying.
I felt nothing.
“Your mother contacted me years ago.”
“Why?”
“My father knew your father professionally.”
I looked through the folder.
“Keep going.”
“She needed help finding someone who could advise her about a family situation.”
“What family situation?”
“Adrian, please come back to the house.”
“No.”
“This is not something to discuss over the phone.”
“You had four years to discuss it.”
Silence.
Then I heard her voice change.
Lower.
Less emotional.
“Your mother was trying to protect you.”
The exact sentence I had expected.
“From my son?”
“You don’t know that he’s yours.”
I froze.
“How do you know it’s a boy?”
Vanessa stopped breathing.
That was the moment.
The exact moment everything changed.
