CHAPTER ELEVEN
ISABELLA
Alexander does not try to touch Lily.
That is the first thing I notice after he kneels in front of her. The second is the way he looks at her, as though his body has forgotten the need to blink.
Lily does not seem afraid. She studies the man in front of her with the same solemn curiosity she gives anything new and, now that she has established that Alexander genuinely likes chocolate, appears to consider him slightly less suspicious.
I stay close.
Not because I believe he would deliberately hurt her, but because I still do not know what he will do with the intensity written all over his face.
Alexander has always turned emotion into action: he bought things, fixed problems, removed obstacles, and rearranged the world until it resembled what he wanted.
A five-year-old cannot be managed that way.
Lily tilts her head.
“Do you live alone?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have a wife?”
Alexander’s jaw tightens, although his answer remains calm. “No.”
“A girlfriend?”
“No.”
She considers both absences before moving on to what is apparently the more serious issue.
“A dog?”
“No.”
Lily frowns. “Why not?”
“I’ve never seriously considered having one.”
“You should. People who live alone need dogs, otherwise no one is happy when they come home.”
The comment lands. I see it in the brief shift of Alexander’s eyes, although Lily does not notice.
“I’ll consider it,” he promises.
“Is your house big?”
He looks at me, perhaps trying to decide how much he can say without making it sound as though he is inviting our daughter to visit before I have agreed to anything.
“Relatively large.”
Lily narrows her eyes.
“That means yes.”
“Probably.”
“Does it have stairs?”
“It does.”
“How many?”
“Staircases or steps?”
She takes the distinction seriously.
“Both.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to hide a smile. Alexander answers as though he is appearing before an international commission reviewing the company accounts.
“There are three main staircases, but I don’t know how many steps.”
“How do you not know?”
“I’ve never needed to count them.”
“You can count when you get home.”
“I can.”
“Then tell me.”
“I will.”
Lily seems satisfied that she has identified a problem and successfully delegated its solution. She gets up, grabs her stuffed rabbit by one ear, and heads toward the sitting room.
“Come on. I’ll show you my toys.”
Alexander rises but does not follow her before looking at me.
“May I?”
The question catches me off guard. He is standing inside my house, in front of the daughter he has just discovered, and still waits for permission before walking through an open doorway.
“You may. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Lily leads him to the rug while I make tea. Through the opening between the rooms, I can watch them without looking as though I am monitoring every movement.
Clara turned up fifteen minutes ago under the pretense of bringing cake.
I know she actually came to make certain Alexander would not try to abduct my daughter, buy the entire street, or turn the meeting into a legal dispute before dessert.
My best friend stands beside me now, cutting the cake into uneven slices while watching the sitting room.
“He looks terrified,” she whispers.
“He is.”
“Good. A little fear is healthy for men who are used to controlling everything.”
I should agree without reservation. Instead, something almost painful moves through me as I watch Alexander sitting on the edge of the sofa, his hands resting on his knees while Lily presents each item in her collection.
“I’m not sure I want him to be afraid,” I admit.
Clara stops cutting.
“Since when?”
“Not afraid for himself. Afraid of doing something wrong with her. If he’s too terrified, every conversation is going to feel like a test.”
“To you, it probably is.”
“It is. It can’t be for Lily.”
Clara studies me for a moment.
“You’re still protecting both of them.”
“I’m protecting my daughter.”
“Of course.”
I do not like the way she says it, as though there is another truth underneath that I have no intention of examining.
When we return to the sitting room, Lily is sitting on the rug in front of a plastic tray.
“Do you know how to play?” she asks Alexander.
He considers the question seriously.
“That depends on the game.”
“Tea party.”
Clara chokes behind me and disguises it as a cough.
Alexander looks at the tiny cup Lily is offering him, then at the cushion on the floor.
“Are there rules?”
“Lots.”
“Then you’d better explain them before I commit some kind of violation.”
Twenty minutes later, Alexander Thorne is attending a tea party on the rug wearing a fairy tiara and holding a cup that disappears between his fingers. He does not complain, although he handles every plastic utensil as though it might detonate if used incorrectly.
Lily pours imaginary tea and watches as he raises the cup to his mouth.
“Your pinky,” she corrects.
Alexander examines his hand.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It has to stay up when you drink fancy tea.”
He lifts his little finger.
“Like this?”
“Higher.”
Alexander obeys, raising it to an awkward angle.
“Better,” she says. “Now you can drink.”
“Thank you for the authorization.”
“You have to say the tea is good.”
He pretends to take another sip.
“It’s excellent.”
“What flavor?”
Alexander hesitates. This is clearly not a question he prepared for.
“Chocolate.”
“Tea doesn’t taste like chocolate.”
“This one seems to.”
Lily peers into the empty cup.
“It’s strawberry.”
“Of course. Now that you mention it, the flavor is obvious.”
I turn toward the window because if I meet Clara’s eyes, both of us are going to laugh.
My chest hurts.
It is unfair that Alexander looks so right on my daughter’s rug.
Not natural as a father—not yet—but like someone who could have occupied that space from the beginning, learned the rules of imaginary tea parties, and let Lily put tiaras in his hair before she was old enough to ask why she did not have a father.
Perhaps that is the cruelest part.
For five years, I managed to think of him as the man who rejected our daughter. Now I am being forced to confront the possibility that Alexander could have loved Lily easily if he had not allowed fear, pride, and the need to be right to win.
After almost an hour, Lily loses interest in the tea party and runs to the table to draw. Alexander gets up carefully, as though he does not trust his legs after spending so long on the floor, and removes the tiara.
He looks at it for a few seconds.
“Can I keep this?”
I look at the glittery plastic object.
“The tiara?”
“Yes.”
“It belongs to Lily. Ask her.”
Alexander walks over to the table but waits until our daughter finishes the line she is drawing.
“Lily, may I keep your tiara?”
She looks up from the paper.
“Why?”
For the first time since he arrived, Alexander seems not to have a prepared answer.
“Because I want to remember today.”
My heart contracts.
Lily considers the request.
“You can. I have another one, but that one has a bigger star.”
“This one is perfect.”
He holds the tiara as though he has just been awarded an international decoration.
Lily goes back to her drawing. Alexander moves closer, leaving enough space that she does not feel surrounded, and watches the colored lines appear across the paper.
“What are you drawing?”
“My family.”
My body tightens.
There are four figures. I recognize Lily in the middle, me on one side, my mother on the other, and Clara slightly farther away beside a disproportionately large rabbit.
Alexander is not in the picture.
He sees the omission. For a moment, the smile leaves his face, but he does not ask why he was not included or force Lily to manage the hurt it causes him.
“It’s beautiful,” he says simply. “I like the rabbit.”
“That’s Oliver. Do you want to draw?”
“I’m not very good.”
“You can practice.”
Lily hands him a blue pencil, and Alexander accepts the challenge. She tells him to draw his house. The result is an excessively symmetrical rectangle with perfectly aligned doors and windows, as though the design needs approval from an engineering department.
“It looks like an office,” Lily complains.
“Houses and offices have certain structural similarities.”
“It needs flowers.”
She takes the green pencil from his hand, adds crooked stems around the building, and tops each one with colorful circles. Then she draws a little girl in front of the door.
Alexander follows every movement.
“Who’s that?”
“Me, if I visit.”
His fingers tighten around the pencil.
“I’d like that.”
“Do you have chocolate at your house?”
“I can arrange it.”
“Don’t say that,” I interrupt.
They both look at me.
“Lily is not visiting your house yet.”
The happiness disappears from Alexander’s face, but he does not argue.
“Of course. I should have asked first.”
Lily notices the tension and looks between us.
“When can I go?”
I move closer to the table.
“When the three of us are ready and your mum says it’s safe.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“No. It’s just a house you don’t know yet.”
Alexander keeps his eyes on the drawing.
“Your mum is right. For now, we can keep seeing each other here or in places you already know.”
Lily accepts the explanation more easily than I expected. Children do not need perfect answers; they only need to feel that the adults around them are not hiding a threat.
Clara appears with the cake before any more questions can arise.
For the next few minutes, the room fills with plates, crumbs, and an argument over which slice has the most icing. Alexander accepts the one Lily chooses for him and eats without complaint, although I remember that he never liked that flavor.
My daughter follows Clara into the kitchen to get napkins. The moment they disappear, I am alone with him.
“You did well,” I say.
Alexander continues looking toward the doorway.
“She’s incredible.”
“She is.”
“Funny, intelligent, and capable of conducting a better interrogation than some solicitors I know. She’s stubborn too.”
“That part is yours.”