Chapter 1 - The Little Girl Behind the Roses
"YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO TALK TO HIM!"
Helena Whitmore's scream cut through the grand ballroom just as the orchestra reached the final notes of its opening waltz.
Three hundred guests turned toward the marble hallway.
Crystal chandeliers glittered above women in evening gowns and men wearing watches worth more than most families earned in a year.
Waiters froze with silver trays in their hands.
At the center of the hallway stood Helena Whitmore, the sixty-eight-year-old matriarch of one of Connecticut's wealthiest families.
Her diamond necklace flashed against her black velvet gown.
Her face was twisted with a fury that made her nearly unrecognizable.
And standing directly in front of her was Marta Alvarez, a housekeeper who had worked for the Whitmore family for thirty-one years.
Marta's hands were trembling.
But she refused to lower her eyes.
"I should have told him a long time ago," Marta said.
Helena stepped closer.
"If you say another word, I'll make sure you never work in this town again."
A voice interrupted them.
"Mother?"
Gabriel Whitmore stood at the entrance to the hallway.
At thirty-nine, Gabriel had built Whitmore Development into a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
He owned luxury hotels, commercial properties, and an estate so large that its gardens required six full-time groundskeepers.
People called him ruthless in business.
They called him brilliant.
They called him one of New England's most eligible bachelors.
But nobody had ever called him a father.
Not even once.
"What's going on?" Gabriel asked.
Helena immediately changed her expression.
"Nothing, darling."
She reached for his arm.
"Marta has been behaving inappropriately."
Gabriel looked past his mother.
Marta was crying.
That alone frightened him.
He had known Marta since he was eight years old.
She had taught him how to tie his shoes, stayed beside him through childhood fevers, and secretly brought him birthday cake when his mother thought celebrating too much would make him spoiled.
He had watched Marta bury her husband without shedding a tear in public.
He had never seen her look this terrified.
"Marta?"
The older woman pressed a hand against her chest.
"Mr. Gabriel, I need to tell you something."
Helena grabbed her wrist.
"Not another word."
Gabriel's expression hardened.
"Take your hand off her, Mother."
Several guests moved closer.
Helena released Marta.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Marta said six words that destroyed Gabriel's entire understanding of his life.
"You have a daughter, Mr. Gabriel."
The hallway went silent.
Gabriel stared at her.
"What?"
"A little girl."
Marta wiped her cheeks.
"She's six years old."
Gabriel gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
"That's impossible."
"No, sir."
Marta shook her head.
"She was born on April seventeenth."
Gabriel stopped breathing.
April seventeenth.
Six years earlier.
His mind immediately traveled to a small house in Vermont, where he had spent the happiest year of his life with a woman named Olivia Bennett.
Olivia had been a kindergarten art teacher.
She loved cinnamon coffee, old bookstores, and thunderstorms.
She wore inexpensive sweaters and laughed at his terrible jokes.
She was the only woman who had ever loved Gabriel without caring about the Whitmore name.
And six years earlier, she had disappeared.
His mother had told him Olivia accepted money to leave him.
Gabriel had never believed it completely.
But Olivia stopped answering his calls.
Her apartment was empty.
Her number was disconnected.
And eventually, the silence became something he could no longer fight.
He looked at Marta.
"Olivia?"
Marta nodded.
"Yes, sir."
Gabriel felt the floor shift beneath him.
"She had my child?"
"She tried to tell you."
Helena's voice snapped like a whip.
"That's enough!"
Gabriel turned slowly.
"Mother."
His voice was almost inaudible.
"Did you know?"
Helena lifted her chin.
"Gabriel, this is neither the time nor the place."
"Did you know?"
"That woman was never right for you."
Gabriel took one step backward.
It was a small movement.
But everyone standing nearby saw it.
"Answer my question."
Helena's lips tightened.
"Yes."
The word landed harder than a gunshot.
Gabriel's face drained of color.
"You knew I had a daughter?"
"Gabriel, please understand."
"For six years?"
Helena looked away.
He pressed his hand against the marble wall.
"Where is she?"
Marta took a breath.
"Sir, there's something else."
Gabriel looked at her.
"Tell me."
"Your daughter has been asking about you since she learned to speak."
His throat tightened.
"Does she know who I am?"
"She knows your first name."
Marta's voice cracked.
"She knows you live in a big house."
Gabriel closed his eyes.
"And?"
"She draws pictures of you."
Something in Marta's expression changed.
"Every week, Mr. Gabriel."
He opened his eyes.
"What kind of pictures?"
"Pictures of herself holding your hand."
Marta began crying harder.
"Pictures of you sitting beside her at school."
Gabriel swallowed.
"And what do I look like?"
Marta's answer broke him.
"She never draws your face."
The air seemed to disappear from his lungs.
Marta covered her mouth.
"She says she doesn't know what her daddy looks like."
Gabriel turned away.
He could hear his heartbeat.
He could hear distant music from the ballroom.
He could hear someone whispering his name.
But all he could think about was a little girl sitting somewhere with crayons, trying to imagine the face of a father who had never held her.
"Where is she now?"
His voice broke on the last word.
Marta pointed toward the glass doors at the end of the hallway.
"In the garden."
Gabriel looked at her.
"Here?"
Marta nodded.
"She came with me tonight."
Helena stepped forward.
"Gabriel, I forbid you to—"
He turned on her.
"You don't get to forbid anything anymore."
Then he ran.
He pushed through the glass doors and stepped into the cold October air.
Beyond the terrace, hundreds of white roses glowed beneath the garden lights.
A stone fountain murmured in the distance.
And beneath an old magnolia tree, Gabriel saw a little girl sitting alone on a wooden bench.
She wore a pale yellow dress beneath a blue cardigan.
Her brown hair was tied into two uneven braids.
A sketchbook rested on her knees.
She was drawing.
Gabriel stopped several feet away.
His chest hurt.
The little girl looked up.
Her eyes were green.
Olivia's eyes.
She studied him for a moment.
Then she smiled politely.
"Hi."
Gabriel tried to answer.
Nothing came out.
The girl tilted her head.
"Are you lost?"
He shook his head.
"No, sweetheart."
She looked back at her sketchbook.
"I'm waiting for somebody."
Gabriel's knees weakened.
"Who?"
"My daddy."
She said it with such quiet certainty that Gabriel nearly fell.
He moved closer.
"What's your name?"
"Isabelle."
She smiled again.
"But everybody calls me Izzy."
Gabriel looked at the picture on her lap.
It showed a little girl standing beside a tall man beneath a yellow sun.
The man's suit was blue.
His hands were carefully drawn.
There were even small buttons on his jacket.
But where his face should have been, there was only an empty oval.
Gabriel crouched.
"Why doesn't he have a face?"
Izzy looked at him as though the answer were obvious.
"Because I don't know what he looks like yet."
She touched the drawing.
"But Marta says he has kind eyes."
Gabriel couldn't hold back his tears.
Izzy noticed.
"Why are you crying?"
He tried to smile.
"Because I've been looking for someone too."
"Who?"
Gabriel reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone.
His hands shook as he opened an old photograph.
It showed him and Olivia standing beside a lake.
Olivia was laughing.
His arm was wrapped around her waist.
He turned the screen toward Izzy.
"Do you know this lady?"
Izzy's entire face changed.
"Mommy!"
She took the phone.
"That's my mommy!"
Gabriel nodded.
"And the man beside her?"
Izzy stared at the screen.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then her eyes widened.
She looked at the picture.
Then at Gabriel.
Then back at the picture.
Her little fingers began to tremble.
"Is that..."
She stopped.
Gabriel's tears fell onto the grass.
"Yes, sweetheart."
He opened his arms.
"I'm your daddy."
Izzy didn't move.
She studied his face with heartbreaking concentration.
Then she whispered something Gabriel would remember for the rest of his life.
"Mommy said you were coming."
Gabriel went completely still.
"Your mommy?"
Izzy nodded.
"She told me you would come when you found out."
A cold feeling crept through Gabriel's chest.
"Where is your mommy, Izzy?"
The little girl looked toward the dark windows of the mansion.
Her smile disappeared.
"Grandma Helena said Mommy went to heaven."
Gabriel closed his eyes.
The world seemed to tilt again.
Then Izzy added one more sentence.
May you like
"But I heard Mommy's voice yesterday."
And Gabriel realized the secret his mother had hidden was far worse than a child.
