“Rose.”
His expression changed again. Not dramatically. Adrian was not a dramatic man. He carried emotion the way others carried secrets, buried deep beneath polished control. But I saw it—the small softening around his mouth, the stunned ache behind his eyes.
“Rose,” he repeated.
“She has my mother’s name.”
He nodded, absorbing that too. My mother had adored him once. She had believed he was lonely rather than distant, wounded rather than proud. On our wedding day, she had squeezed my hands and whispered that love sometimes needed patience.
She had died before learning patience could become a cage.
Adrian’s voice was rough when he spoke again. “Is she mine?”
The question should have offended me.
Instead, it exhausted me.
I reached into my coat pocket and removed the envelope I had carried for weeks. Inside were copies of hospital records, a birth certificate, and a DNA test I had paid for with money I did not have, because I knew powerful people liked proof more than tears.
I placed it on the table.
“Yes.”
He stared at the envelope but did not touch it.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“I know.”
That seemed to hurt him more than if I had accused him.
I moved to the chair opposite his, careful not to wake Rose. My legs felt suddenly unsteady. Determination had carried me through the lobby, the elevator, the hallway, and the doors. Now that the room was quiet, my body remembered it was tired.
Adrian noticed.
