The Page He Leaked
Chapter 06 - The Page He Leaked
By evening, Mave’s handwriting was everywhere.
Not all of it. Just enough.
If Garrett ever finds out, I’m afraid Posie will stop being my daughter and become Hail property. Maybe she is safer if he never knows.
The line had been written when Posie was nine months old, feverish, sleeping across Mave’s chest in a rented room above the bakery in Camden. It had been snowing that night. The radiator hissed. Mave had not slept properly in three days.
She had been scared.
She had written the truth of that moment.
Lionel Ashford turned it into a headline.
Woman who hid Hail heir admits father should never know.
Secret child revelation disrupts society wedding.
Did runaway ex-lover plan trust ambush?
Ada told Mave not to read comments.
Mave read four.
That was enough.
One woman called her a gold digger.
Another called her smart.
A third said Garrett Hail probably deserved it because billionaires never missed meals.
A fourth wrote, Maybe mothers know when to run.
Mave turned the phone over.
She and Posie were in Ada’s townhouse in Brooklyn Heights, which had old floors, bookshelves in every room, and a guest bed with a quilt that smelled like lavender and legal competence.
Posie ate pizza at the kitchen island wearing Garrett’s tuxedo jacket like a blanket because children had no respect for symbolism.
Garrett stood in the hallway near the front door, wet hair finally drying, bow tie gone, white shirt wrinkled. He had come only because Ada allowed twenty minutes under supervision.
Mave had allowed it because Posie asked why the wet man with gray eyes did not get pizza.
Now Posie had sauce on her chin and no idea the internet had decided her mother’s fear was evidence.
Garrett looked at Mave.
“I’ll make a statement.”
“No.”
“Mave—”
“No.”
Her voice came sharper than intended.
Posie looked up.
Mave softened instantly. “Sorry, baby. Grown-up voice.”
Posie nodded gravely. “Use inside voice.”
Garrett looked like that hurt him.
Good, Mave thought, then regretted thinking it.
She turned to him.
“If you defend me, they’ll say I manipulated you.”
“If I stay silent, they’ll think I agree.”
“They already think what they were told to think.”
Ada, making tea near the stove, said, “Public opinion is an untrained dog. Do not offer it your hand.”
Garrett glanced at her.
“You have a metaphor for everything?”
“I’m seventy. I’ve earned extras.”
Mave almost smiled.
Garrett took out his phone and opened it.
Not to call.
To read.
He looked at the leaked page.
Then at Mave.
“You were right.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You wrote that you were afraid Posie would become Hail property if I found her.” His jaw tightened. “After today, I understand why.”
Mave looked away.
That was the cruel thing about Garrett being decent now. It made old hatred harder to hold cleanly.
He continued.
“I don’t want her in the trust because she benefits me. I want her protected from it until she can benefit from it.”
Ada’s eyebrows lifted.
“Useful wording.”
Mave studied him.
“You’ve had three years of not being a father. You don’t get to become noble by dinner.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No,” he said. “But I’m trying to know.”
Posie slid a crust toward him.
“You can have the bone.”
Garrett looked confused.
“The pizza bone,” Posie explained.
Mave closed her eyes.
Garrett accepted it like communion.
“Thank you.”
Posie nodded.
“You’re welcome, wet man.”
“My name is Garrett.”
“I know.”
“Do you want to call me that?”
She considered him.
“Maybe.”
Mave’s throat tightened.
Ada’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and her expression changed.
“What?” Mave asked.
Ada hung up.
“Lionel Ashford has filed a civil complaint.”
Garrett stood straighter.
“Against whom?”
“Mave.”
Mave felt cold.
Ada’s mouth tightened.
“He claims Mave knowingly interfered with a binding marital-corporate alliance and caused damages by withholding Posie’s parentage until the wedding day.”
Garrett said, “That’s absurd.”
“Yes,” Ada said. “Absurd with money behind it still requires answering.”
Mave sat down.
She had known Lionel would strike. Men like him did not leak one page and go home satisfied.
Garrett looked at Ada.
“What does he want?”
“Emergency injunction preventing Mave from discussing Ashford or Hail matters publicly. Access to her notebook. Financial damages. And…” Ada looked at Mave. “A psychiatric evaluation.”
Garrett’s face darkened.
“No.”
Mave laughed softly.
There it was.
Unstable.
The oldest door.
Ada touched her shoulder.
“We expected this.”
Mave looked up.
“You expected him to ask a court to label me unstable?”
“I expected him to use the same hammer powerful men have been swinging since women learned to keep receipts.”
Garrett said, “I’ll counter.”
Ada looked at him sharply.
“You will do nothing impulsive.”
“I have evidence.”
“What evidence?”
Garrett looked toward the window, rain running silver down the glass.
“My father’s files.”
Beatrice had always said his father left the company in perfect order. Nothing loose, nothing unfinished.
Garrett had believed her.
Tonight, he no longer believed Beatrice about the weather.
“My father had a private archive,” Garrett said. “Wesley helped maintain it after he died. I never opened it because my mother said it was only old board materials.”
Ada looked at Wesley, who had silently appeared in the doorway like guilt wearing a suit.
Wesley’s face was tight.
“Sir,” he said, “your father left instructions.”
Garrett turned.
“What instructions?”
Wesley looked at Mave.
Then at Posie.
“He said the archive should be opened only if Beatrice ever tried to bury a child.”
The kitchen went silent.
Posie held up another pizza crust.
“No one buries children,” she said.
Mave pulled her close.
“No, baby,” she whispered. “Not anymore.”
Wesley removed a small key from his jacket.
Garrett stared at it.
May you like
For the first time all day, Beatrice Hail’s fear made perfect sense.
Whatever Garrett’s father had left behind, she had spent years making sure no one opened it.
