Page 22 of His Daughter

The interview wrapped. The cameras powered down. Meredith shook my hand again, and as she pulled back, she pressed a folded piece of paper into my palm. I glanced at it. A phone number, written in clean, deliberate handwriting. Below it: Call me.

I slipped it into my jacket pocket without changing my expression.

Julian waited until she was out of the room. "What was that?"

I held the paper up. "Her number."

"Are you going to call her?"

I straightened my cuffs and smirked. "I just might."

Julian laughed, and we walked back together. He waved as he veered off in the direction of his office. I nodded and continued to mine.

I pulled the folded paper from my pocket and smoothed it on my desk. She was attractive and intelligent, and it wasn’t exactly business since the interview was over, the segment would air, and there was no ongoing relationship to complicate.

Calling her would be easy. A dinner. A drink. A distraction from the dark-haired woman I was trying not to think about.

I put the number in my phone and stared at the screen. My thumb hovered over the call button. I was just about to hit the dial when my office door swung open.

Nolan stood in the doorway. He was frowning, his jaw was set, and his lips pressed into a thin line. Now, who's gone and pissed off Nolan Reeves? Probably one of the interns.

I leaned back in my chair and summoned the grin. "You look like you're about to deliver a eulogy, Reeves. Who died?"

He didn't smile. He walked in and closed the door behind him. He sat in the chair across from my desk and folded his hands.

"I'm about to say something that might change everything."

The grin faltered a little. Oh, probably not an intern then. "What? Did the acquisition fall through? Did Caine cancel the meeting?"

Nolan shook his head. "No."

"Then what?"

Nolan looked at me. And then he said four words that split my life into before and after.

"You have a daughter."

SEVEN

THEA

My phone sat face up on the nightstand. No missed calls. No messages.

That was it for Declan Hale and me. What did I even expect? Nothing could have ever come from it. He was…way up there, out of reach. And here I was with a struggling nonprofit and a divorced stamp on my forehead.

That was why I let myself go. For one night, I wasn’t Thea Calloway. I was someone else — the type of woman he’d want to be with, and it was over just as quickly as it started.

But he kept his promise.

The funding came through. The paperwork arrived the week after the dinner. That was all I needed from him. The funding was the business, and the business was done. We were done.

But every night, I would lie on my side of the bed, and the smell of him would drift across the dark room. I thought about his hand on my jaw in the rain and his voice saying, “Maybe I just like looking at you.”

The guilt came fast. My marriage ended two months ago. Two months. I should be grieving. I should be processing. I should be doing anything other than lying in the dark, replaying the sound a man made against my neck in a hallway I'd never see again.

I picked up the phone, put it down, and picked it up again. I found myself scrolling to his name in my contacts — Declan Hale, entered that day in the conference room. I hated myself for keeping it.

I put the phone face down on the nightstand.