**For five years, Nathan never knew he had a daughter.

Nathan was in the hospital waiting room when Victoria found him.

Not because anything was wrong.

Grace had asked a doctor to look at Lily — the child had been quiet and withdrawn all morning, and Grace wanted to be sure the events of the previous night hadn't frightened her into something physical.

The doctor had been kind and thorough and said Lily was fine.

Tired.

Emotionally overwhelmed in the way small children get when the adults around them have been afraid.

But fine.

Lily was asleep on a chair with her head in Grace's lap.

Nathan was standing by the window with a paper cup of coffee going cold in his hand when Victoria walked in.

She looked different without the composure she usually wore like a second skin.

Her hair wasn't quite right.

Her coat was buttoned unevenly.

"He called me," she said.

"After you left."

"I assumed he would."

"He's going to do it.

Withdraw the documents." She stopped a few feet away.

"He said you gave him no real choice."

Nathan said nothing.

"He's also restructuring.

Moving assets.

He started making calls an hour ago." She looked at the floor.

"He's trying to protect what he can before Thursday."

"That's his right."

"Nathan." She looked up.

"I need to say something to you and I need you to actually hear it."

"Go ahead."

"I knew about the arrangement before you proposed.

I knew my father had been involved in making Grace disappear.

I knew there was a child." She said it evenly, without flinching.

"I told myself it was old business.

That it had been handled.

That you were happy and the company was stable and there was no reason to open something that was already closed."

"You told yourself a lot of things."

"Yes." She didn't look away.

"I also told myself I loved you.

And I think that was true.

But I loved the version of you that didn't ask questions I couldn't answer.

And that's not the same thing."

Nathan looked at her for a long moment.

"Why did you come here tonight?

The real reason."

Victoria glanced at Lily, still asleep across the room.

"My father called me two weeks ago when Grace surfaced.

He told me to handle it quietly before you found out.

He said if you found out, the merger was finished and everything we'd built together was finished." She paused.

"I went to Grace's apartment to offer her money.

To ask her to leave again.

She said no." Another pause.

"I went back last night because I was frightened and I wasn't thinking clearly and I made a terrible decision."

"You picked up a hockey stick."

"I picked up a hockey stick." She said it like she was hearing herself for the first time.

"She had a four-year-old in her arms and I picked up a hockey stick."

Grace hadn't looked up from Lily's hair, which she was smoothing slowly with one hand.

"I'm not going to pretend that's forgivable," Victoria said.

"I'm not asking you to forgive it.

I'm telling you because you deserve the truth and because I'm done performing the version of this where I'm the reasonable one." She straightened her coat.

"I'll have my things out of the apartment by the weekend."

She turned to go.

"Victoria."

She stopped.

"The woman before Grace," Nathan said.

"The one your father removed.

Did you know about her too?"

A long pause.

"I was seventeen," she said.

"I heard my father on the phone.

I didn't understand all of it." She didn't turn around.

"I've understood it for a long time."