CHAPTER 5: James Turns Pale

James had known this night would come in dreams, but never with chandeliers overhead and champagne glasses in everyone's hands.
He had imagined Clara angry. He had imagined lawyers. He had imagined private threats from men like his father.
He had not imagined Noah.
The boy looked too much like a memory James had tried to rename as a mistake.
Ten years earlier, Clara had been a nurse at a recovery center where James spent six quiet weeks after a car accident Margaret made certain the public never heard about. Clara did not treat him like an heir. She treated him like a patient who needed to stand, breathe, and stop feeling sorry for himself.
He loved her more honestly than he had loved anyone.
Then Margaret found out.
There were meetings. Threats. A check Clara never cashed. A forged letter James was told Clara had written, saying she wanted nothing from him.
By the time James realized pieces did not fit, he had chosen comfort too many times to become brave easily.
Now his son stood ten feet away.
With the ring James had once given Clara in private.
And James could not make his mouth form a lie fast enough.