Chapter 6: The Gentleman Returns
I sat in my car for a moment and looked at his car.
A dark blue sedan, clean, expensive.
The kind of car that said *I am exactly who I appear to be.*
I went inside.
Greg was in the living room.
He was standing near the window with a coffee cup in his hand, and when I walked in he turned with an expression of such practiced warmth that for one half-second I understood completely how Claire had fallen for him.
"Good morning," he said.
"I didn't know you'd be here."
"I imagine not," I said.
Claire was on the sofa.
She had her hands in her lap and she was watching him the way you watch something you're not sure is safe.
Greg set his coffee down.
"I owe you both an apology for last night.
I handled that badly.
I got defensive and I shouldn't have."
"Show Claire the message from Hannah," I said.
His expression didn't change.
"I deleted it.
It was nothing."
"You deleted it this morning or last night?"
A small pause.
"Last night."
"After you texted Hannah and told her not to speak to anyone?"
The warmth in his face didn't vanish.
It reorganized.
Became something cooler and more deliberate.
"I don't know what that girl told you," he said, "but she has a history of fixating on men who don't return her interest.
I've been kind to her.
That was apparently a mistake."
"Priya said the same thing happened to her," Claire said.
Her voice was flat.
"That you were kind to her."
Greg looked at Claire.
Something shifted behind his eyes.
"Melissa has been filling your head with—"
"Melissa told me about the complaint," Claire said.
"And the messages that appeared afterward.
The ones that looked like they were from her."
"That is a serious accusation."
"I know it is."
He turned to me.
The warmth was gone now entirely.
What replaced it was not anger — it was assessment.
He was looking at me the way he'd looked at me on the street, right before he decided I wasn't worth his time.
"You came into this family and decided in one evening that you knew who I was," he said.
"You spoke to a troubled young woman for ten minutes on a street corner and you built a case out of it.
Do you understand what you're doing to your daughter's life?"
"I understand what you've been doing to it," I said.
"I love Claire."
"Then show her the phone."
"I told you.
I deleted—"
"Show her your deleted messages."
His jaw tightened.
One beat.
Two.
"I think you should leave," he said.
"This is between Claire and me."
"Mom stays," Claire said.
He looked at her.
"Claire—"
"She stays." Claire stood up.
"And I need you to answer something.
Not for her.
For me." She crossed her arms.
"Did you know who she was when you sat down at that table last night?"
The pause was a fraction too long.
"I recognized her, yes.
From the street.
I didn't know she was your mother until—"
"You knew before dinner," I said.
"You had my name from the moment Hannah's father arrived to collect her.
You had hours."
He looked at me.
Then at Claire.
Then back at me.
"I think," he said carefully, "that we've reached the point where anything I say will be used against me, so I'm going to stop talking and suggest that everyone takes a breath."
He picked up his coffee cup.
He picked up his jacket from the arm of the chair.
He moved toward the door with the unhurried ease of a man who believed he was choosing to leave.
"This isn't finished," he said at the door.
To Claire, not to me.
"No," I agreed.
"It isn't."
He left.
The door didn't slam.
That was somehow worse.
Claire sat back down.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth.
"He knew," she said.
"The whole dinner.
He knew."
I sat down beside her.
"Yes," I said.
"He did."
She didn't cry.
She stared at the middle distance for a long moment, and then she said something I hadn't expected.
"Melissa told me there's a third woman.
May you like
Someone before Priya.
She doesn't know her name."
