PART 2: A Stranger Let Me Sleep on His Shoulder—Then My Ex-Husband Found Me Before the Plane Even Landed -035
“We?”
“You.”
He corrected himself immediately.
“You’ll have whatever you can legally obtain. If you want help requesting it, Daniel can explain the process. That’s all.”
I studied him.
“You really think about every word, don’t you?”
“When people quote youfor a living, you learn.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
For the first time that night, his smile reached his eyes.
Only briefly.
Then he glanced at the photograph again.
“May I ask one question?”
“Yes.”
“Why was Ethan investigating Northbridge?”
I should have refused.
Instead I said, “He says there were financial discrepancies.”
Adrian’s smile disappeared.
“What kind?”
“Medical supplies paid for but never delivered.”
He went absolutely still.
Not surprised.
Not exactly.
Recognizing something.
I saw it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I stared at him.
He sighed.
“You’re right. That was a terrible answer.”
“What did you remember?”
Adrian looked toward the window at the far end of the hallway.
“Caroline once complained about treatment delays.”
My pulse quickened.
“What kind of delays?”
“Medication. Equipment. I don’t know. At the time we assumed it was normal hospital bureaucracy.”
“Did she ever mention Northbridge?”
“No.”
“Did you investigate?”
“She was sick.”His voice tightened.
“I was trying to be her brother, not the CEO of a healthcare company.”
That silenced me.
Regret passed across his face with such naked clarity that I felt ashamed for pushing.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.”
“Yes, I do.”
He looked at me.
“I’m beginning to understand something.”
“What?”
“Everyone around this situation seems to have decided what other people should be allowed to know.”
The sentence settled between us.
Ethan protecting me.
Sam warning Ethan.
Adrian’s company making decisions he may never have seen.
Someone sending me a photograph.
Someone choosing what truth appeared when.
“I’m tired of that,” I said.
“So am I.”
This time, we agreed without hesitation.
Lily woke at six twenty in the morning and announced that she wanted pancakes.
Not answers.
Not financial records.
Not explanations of why her parents had stopped living together.
Pancakes.
Her hair stoodin every direction.
One sock had vanished.
She sat in the middle of the hotel bed holding her rabbit and looked at me with complete faith that breakfast would happen because breakfast always happened.
“Chocolate chips?” she asked.
“You ate chocolate chips yesterday.”
“So?”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
I laughed.
It was the first laugh that felt like mine in weeks.
“Fine. But fruit too.”
“Strawberries.”
“If they have them.”
“They have them.”
“You seem very confident.”
She nodded gravely.
“Hotels have strawberries.”
Apparently four-year-olds possessed international hospitality knowledge I did not.
Twenty minutes later, we were downstairs.
I had expected Adrian to be gone.
Instead, he was sitting at a corner table with Daniel, a laptop open between them and a cup of coffee untouched at his elbow.
He looked worse than he had the night before.
Lily spotted him.
“Airplane Adrian!”
Several people turned.
Adrianclosed his eyes.
Daniel hid a smile behind his coffee.
I wanted the floor to open.
Lily ran toward the table.
“Good morning!”
Adrian looked at her.
Then at me.
“Airplane Adrian?”
“She names people by location.”
“I’m afraid to ask what she calls her pediatrician.”
“Sticker Doctor.”
“That’s fair.”
Lily climbed into the chair beside him as though billionaires were simply another category of breakfast companion.
“Are you getting pancakes?”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Hotels have strawberries.”
Adrian looked at me.
“I’m clearly underinformed.”
Something warm moved through my chest.
Dangerously warm.
This was how life tricked people.
Not with grand gestures.
With ordinary moments you hadn’t planned to want.
I sat across from them.
Daniel closed the laptop.
“We have some information.”
My stomach tightened.
Lily looked between us.
“About pancakes?”
“Not yet,” Adrian said solemnly.
I smiled despite myself.
“Let me feed her first.”
“No problem.”
And that was what we did.
For twenty minutes, the mystery waited.
Lily ate pancakes, six strawberries, and exactly one bite of scrambled egg after negotiating the terms as if she were representing a labor union.
Adrian let her draw on a hotel notepad.
She drew an airplane.
Then herself.
Then me.
Then a very tall stick figure beside us.
“Who’s that?” Adrian asked.
“You.”
His eyebrows rose.
