Chapter 1 - THE GHOSTS AT THE CURB
The wind in Chicago was biting,
sharp enough to cut through the heavy silence that followed my words.
Ethan stood perfectly still,
his hand gripping the handle of his leather briefcase so tightly his knuckles turned white.
I watched the realization wash over him,
like a slow-motion car crash he couldn't look away from.
Leo,
the oldest by three minutes,
looked up at the tall man in the expensive suit with curious eyes.
“Mom,”
Leo asked,
his voice small and questioning,
“who is this man?”
I felt a lump form in my throat,
a mixture of five years of suppressed anger and sudden,
blinding fear.
“Nobody,
sweetheart,”
I whispered,
my voice trembling despite my best efforts to remain composed.
“Just someone I used to know a long time ago.”
Ethan flinched at the word ‘nobody,’
as if I had slapped him across the face in front of the entire airport.
He took a staggering step forward,
his eyes searching the faces of the three boys,
scanning the shape of their noses,
the curve of their jaws,
and the specific way their dark hair swirled at the crown.
It was like looking into a mirror of his own childhood photos,
the ones his mother used to keep on the mantle in the Hamptons.
“Olivia,”
he gasped,
his voice cracking,
“tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”
I didn’t answer him.
Instead,
I signaled to the driver,
Arthur,
who had been with me since the boys were born.
Arthur stepped out of the Bentley,
his presence looming and protective,
noticing the distress on my face.
“Everything okay,
Ms. Parker?”
Arthur asked,
his eyes fixed warily on Ethan.
“We’re leaving,
Arthur,”
I said,
ushering Julian and Theo into the backseat.
Ethan reached out,
his hand hovering in the air as if he wanted to grab my arm,
but he stopped himself at the last second.
“You can’t just walk away,”
he shouted over the roar of a departing bus,
“not after this!”
I turned back one last time,
my eyes cold and unforgiving.
“I walked away five years ago,
Ethan,”
I replied,
“and you were the one who opened the door for me.”
I climbed into the car,
the heavy door shutting with a solid,
final thud.
As the Bentley pulled away from the curb,
I looked into the rearview mirror.
Ethan Montgomery,
the man who owned half of the New York skyline,
looked small and defeated,
standing alone amidst the chaos of O'Hare International.
He stayed there until we disappeared into the traffic,
a ghost from a life I thought I had buried forever.
But I knew him well enough to know one thing.
Ethan Montgomery never let anything go,
especially when it belonged to him.
May you like
And in his mind,
those three boys were already his.
