Not a smile.
Not a conversation.
Not even the chance to explain.
For the first time in my life, I understood that regret was not the same thing as redemption.
And money could not purchase either.
That evening, I returned to the hotel alone.
Cordelia had left the competition early with Penelope.
She hadn’t spoken to me since the auditorium.
My phone contained seventeen missed calls from my father and nine from Richard Cole.
I ignored them all.
Instead, I sat at the desk and searched through old records from the year of my divorce.
I found the settlement agreement.
I found the correspondence between my lawyer and my father’s office.
And then I found an email I had never seen before.
It had been sent by Richard thirteen years earlier.
The subject line read: Marianne Hartwell — Pregnancy Notice.
My hands went cold.
I opened it.
Richard had written to my father that Marianne had contacted his office to report her pregnancy.
