Chapter 2 - What Richard Mercer Did
The wedding continued.
That sounds impossible.
But weddings are strange machines.
Music keeps playing.
Servers keep carrying champagne.
Children keep stealing frosting.
A family can be collapsing twenty yards away and someone will still announce the bouquet toss.
Nathan asked Richard to come into a private room.
I stayed because Marissa asked me to.
Ethan objected.
Nobody cared.
Richard entered looking irritated.
“What is this about?”
Nathan placed Marissa's phone on the table.
“Seven years ago, I told you about Marissa.”
Richard looked at her.
Recognition flashed across his face.
Tiny.
Enough.
Ethan saw it too.
“You know her?”
Richard recovered.
“I've met many of Nathan's girlfriends.”
“I wasn't his girlfriend,” Marissa said.
Richard ignored her.
Nathan stepped forward.
“I told you I thought I loved her.”
“Yes.”
“You told me she was using me.”
Richard sighed.
“Nathan—”
“You told me to leave Savannah.”
“You had an internship.”
“You arranged it.”
“I helped my son.”
Nathan pointed at the email.
“Did you create this?”
Richard barely looked.
“No.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
“No.”
Marissa spoke.
“Yes, you did.”
Richard turned toward her.
“You came to my office.”
Everyone became still.
Marissa's hands shook.
“I was three months pregnant. Nathan wasn't answering. I thought something had happened.”
Nathan stared.
“You went to Dad?”
“Yes.”
Richard said:
“This is absurd.”
Marissa continued.
“Your father told me Nathan had left because he wanted nothing to do with me.”
Nathan sat down.
Marissa was crying now.
“He gave me five thousand dollars.”
Richard snapped:
“You were struggling.”
“You told me it was from Nathan.”
Nathan looked at his father.
“You paid her?”
“I helped her.”
“You told her it was from me?”
Richard said nothing.
Marissa nodded.
“He told me you wanted the pregnancy handled quietly.”
Nathan stood so fast the chair fell.
Ethan grabbed him.
“Don't.”
For once, Ethan and I agreed.
Richard straightened his jacket.
“I was protecting this family.”
There it was.
The sentence people use when what they mean is:
I was controlling everyone.
Nathan asked:
“From what?”
“A mistake.”
Marissa flinched.
Nathan's voice changed.
“My daughter?”
Richard looked toward the door.
“I didn't know there was a child until later.”
“How much later?”
Silence.
“How much later?”
“After she was born.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
That was worse.
Richard had known Lily existed.
Nathan had not.
Ethan looked at his father.
“You knew Nathan had a daughter?”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing?”
“It wasn't my place.”
Marissa laughed.
“That's incredible.”
Richard glared.
“I tried to give you options.”
“You tried to pay me to disappear.”
“I gave you money.”
“You told me your son didn't want his baby.”
Nathan punched the wall.
Not Richard.
The wall.
His knuckles split.
Richard didn't even flinch.
That told me more about their childhood than I wanted to know.
Then Ethan asked:
“What does any of this have to do with Claire?”
Richard looked at me.
I saw it.
Fear.
Not guilt.
Fear.
I had always wondered whether he knew.
Now I had my answer.
I opened my purse.
Inside was a copy of a document I'd kept for six years.
“Because Richard contacted me too.”
Ethan stared.
“When?”
“During our divorce.”
Richard said:
“Claire.”
I looked at him.
“You don't get to warn me anymore.”
I placed the document on the table.
It was a private investigator's report.
Richard had hired someone to follow me.
Photographs.
Work schedules.
Meetings.
Medical appointments.
And one meeting with Marissa.
Ethan stared.
“What is this?”
“Your father had me followed.”
Richard interrupted.
“Because you were behaving suspiciously.”
“I was helping Marissa arrange Lily's adoption.”
Ethan looked at me.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
I laughed softly.
“You were divorcing me.”
“That wasn't final.”
“You had already told me you wanted out.”
Ethan's jaw tightened.
I remembered that night perfectly.
Our final fertility treatment had failed.
I sat on the bathroom floor crying.
Ethan stood in the doorway.
Exhausted.
Angry.
And said:
Maybe we need to accept you're never going to give me a family.
Three weeks later, he moved out.
A month after that, Marissa emailed me.
Helping her gave me something grief had taken away.
Purpose.
Then Richard found out.
He came to my apartment.
He told me adopting Lily would make the Mercer family look ridiculous.
I had asked:
“Why?”
He answered:
“Because you are still Ethan's wife.”
Then he offered me money.
$100,000.
To abandon the adoption.
I refused.
A week later, Ethan filed for divorce.
At the time, I thought Ethan had simply made his decision.
Now I looked at Richard.
“What did you tell Ethan?”
Ethan turned.
“What?”
Richard said nothing.
I looked at my ex-husband.
“Why did you file when you did?”
He stared at me.
“Dad showed me photographs.”
My stomach dropped.
“What photographs?”
“You meeting some man outside the adoption agency.”
I remembered.
“Thomas?”
Ethan shrugged.
“I don't know his name.”
“Thomas Greene was my adoption attorney.”
Ethan stared.
Richard cut in.
“You were meeting him secretly.”
“Because you threatened to interfere.”
Ethan looked at his father.
“You told me she was having an affair.”
Silence.
Then Richard made the mistake that ended everything.
“I told you what the evidence suggested.”
Ethan's face changed.
“No.”
Richard looked at him.
“What?”
“You told me you confirmed it.”
Nobody moved.
Ethan's voice shook.
“You said you'd had someone follow Claire and confirmed she was sleeping with him.”
Richard said nothing.
My knees felt weak.
Five years.
I had spent five years believing Ethan divorced me because my infertility finally made me disposable.
Ethan had spent five years believing I cheated.
And Richard Mercer had known both stories were false.
Why?
Nathan answered before anyone else could.
“Because of Lily.”
We looked at him.
Nathan stared at his father.
“If Claire adopted Lily while she was still married to Ethan, Lily became part of Ethan's household.”
Richard remained silent.
Nathan continued.
“And eventually someone might have discovered who her biological father was.”
Ethan whispered:
“Me.”
Nathan shook his head.
“No.”
Then understood.
“Dad didn't want you raising my daughter.”
Richard finally spoke.
“I was preventing a catastrophe.”
Nathan stared.
“What catastrophe?”
“You two fighting over a child.”
“We didn't even know she existed!”
“Exactly.”
Richard believed that made sense.
That was the horrifying part.
He had manufactured ignorance, then defended it as peace.
Marissa wiped her eyes.
Ethan sat down.
Then asked me something I never expected.
“Claire.”
I looked at him.
“If I'd known you were adopting Lily…”
His voice broke.
“Would you have let me stay?”
I thought about it.
Then answered truthfully.
“I don't know.”
That hurt him.
But five years had passed.
Truth mattered more than comforting him.
Before Ethan could respond, the door opened.
Lily stood there.
She had heard enough to know people were upset.
Not enough to understand why.
“Mommy?”
I went to her.
“I'm right here.”
She looked around the room.
Then at Nathan.
And asked:
“Is he my birth dad?”
Nobody had told her.
But children are excellent at assembling pieces adults believe they've hidden.
I knelt.
“Yes.”
Nathan began crying.
Lily studied him.
Then asked the question none of us expected.
“Did you know about me?”
Nathan shook his head.
“No.”
She looked at Richard.
“Did he?”
Silence.
Richard looked at his granddaughter.
“Yes.”
Lily's face changed.
May you like
And in that moment, the most powerful man in the Mercer family finally had to explain himself to the one person he had never expected to confront.
A seven-year-old girl.
