Chapter 3 - The Call Nell Never Wanted to Make
Sebastian read the message three times.
Adeline saw his face change. "What is it?"
He turned the phone so she could see.
She went completely still. Then, quietly: "Call her."
He tapped Nell's name. She picked up before the first ring finished.
"Sebastian." Her voice was flat and controlled — her boardroom voice, not one she used at home. "Are you alone?"
"Adeline's with me."
A pause. "Then put me on speaker. She has to hear it too."
He set the phone on the nightstand between them. Adeline pulled the towel up higher around her shoulders.
"Talk," Sebastian said.
"I've known Ronald Ashford for twenty-two years," Nell said. "We sat on the hospital foundation board together before you were old enough for those dinners. I watched him build that reputation of his. And I watched him do things that never showed up in a single set of minutes."
"What kind of things?"
"The kind that require one very specific type of child. Healthy. Orphaned. No living relatives to come asking questions." Her voice didn't shake, but it slowed down. "When Vivienne got sick, Ronald came to me. He said he had a way to solve it. He wanted to know if your father's foundation could quietly move an overseas adoption through — one that skipped the standard medical disclosure requirements."
Adeline's hand drifted to her side. She didn't seem to notice she was doing it.
"Your father told him no," Nell said. "He told Ronald it was monstrous. The two of them didn't speak for two years."
"Then how did Ronald pull it off?" Sebastian asked.
"He found somebody else to push the paperwork through. A private agency in Eastern Europe. On paper it was filed as an ordinary humanitarian placement." A breath. "Adeline. Do you know where you were born?"
Adeline's answer was barely a whisper. "Romania. They told me my parents died in a car crash."
"That might be true. Or it might just be what the file says." Nell paused. "I don't know the whole truth about where you come from. But I know Ronald Ashford picked you on purpose. That agency matched children to families by medical compatibility, not by anything else. He paid extra for the service."
Nobody spoke.
Sebastian looked at his wife. Her eyes were fixed on the phone, and she wasn't blinking.
"Nell," he said carefully. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about any of it? You had months."
Another pause, longer this time. "Because I didn't know Adeline was that same child until three weeks ago." Something moved under her voice that Sebastian had almost never heard from her. "When I realized you were serious about her, I hired someone to dig into the Ashfords. I wanted a reason to stop the wedding." A beat. "What I found instead were the agency records. And her name on them."
Adeline pressed a fist against her mouth.
"I should have come straight to you," Nell said. "I didn't. That was wrong of me. I'm telling you now because Ronald is inside that building, and if you go down those stairs tonight without knowing exactly what you're standing in, he will have it buried by morning."
Sebastian stood up. "Where are the records?"
"My attorney has copies. Originals are in a safe deposit box." A pause. "Sebastian. I know I have not been the mother I should have been to you. I'm not asking for anything tonight. But hear me on this — do not go downstairs yet. Ronald has powerful friends. If you go at him in public with nothing in your hands, he'll deny every word, and Adeline is the one who'll come off looking unhinged."
Sebastian looked at Adeline. She was already looking back at him.
"He's right down there," she said softly. "Shaking your father's hand. Laughing."
"I know."
"Sebastian." Her voice was steadier now than it had been all night. "I've been waiting for one single person to believe me since I was nineteen. I can wait one more night if it means he actually pays for it."
Sebastian picked up the phone. "Nell. Send everything to my attorney. Tonight. All of it."
"It's already drafted."
He hung up.
The reception drifted up faintly through the floor — glasses, music, the low roar of two hundred people who had no idea.
Then his phone rang. Not a text. A call. Unknown number.
He answered.
May you like
A man's voice, quiet and careful. "Mr. Cole. My name is Dr. Nathaniel Boyd. I was the anesthesiologist on Adeline Ashford's second surgery." A pause. "I've been trying to find her for four years. I think it's time somebody told the truth about what happened in that operating room."
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