Chapter 2 - The Proposal That Never HappenedBy 6:55 that evening, the Vale conservatory looked like something designed for a royal wedding announcement.
Five minutes later, he walked out wondering whether the last six years of his life had been a lie.
Everything about that day had been arranged.
His charcoal suit had been altered in Manhattan. His grandfather’s platinum cuff links gleamed beneath his sleeves. A velvet ring box containing a seven-carat diamond rested inside his jacket.
At seven that evening, Harrison was expected to kneel beneath the glass roof of the Vale family conservatory and ask Brielle Carrington to become his wife.
Their families would be waiting.
Photographers would be hidden behind the orchids.
Champagne would already be chilled.
By breakfast tomorrow, photographs of the engagement would appear in every society column from New York to Boston.
Harrison had convinced himself he was ready.
Then four little boys walked into the restroom.
They were perhaps five years old, dressed in matching navy sweaters and khaki pants, arguing quietly about who had stolen whose green crayon.
Harrison barely noticed them until the smallest boy climbed onto a stool beside the sink.
He pushed his dark hair backward with wet fingers.
Then he touched the left side of his neck.
Harrison froze.
It was an unconscious gesture Harrison had made his entire life.
His father used to tease him about it.
“Nervous Vale men always touch the neck.”
Another boy glanced at Harrison through the mirror.
Gray eyes.
Not ordinary gray.
Silver around the pupils, darker at the rim.
Harrison’s eyes.
The child frowned.
Then three more identical faces turned toward him.
Harrison forgot how to breathe.
Four boys.
Same dark hair.
Same sharp little chin.
Same unusual eyes.
One even had Harrison’s crooked left eyebrow.
The restroom door opened.
A woman hurried inside.
“Evan? Miles? Theo? Jamie? I told you not to—”
She stopped.
Harrison’s heart struck his ribs so violently it hurt.
“Elena?”
Elena Marlowe stood ten feet away.
For six years, Harrison had believed Elena had abandoned him.
Six years earlier, she had vanished three weeks before he planned to ask her to marry him.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
Only a short email.
I don’t love you anymore. Don’t look for me.
Harrison had looked anyway.
Her apartment had been emptied.
Her phone disconnected.
Her employer said she had resigned.
His mother had eventually shown him bank documents proving Elena had accepted $250,000 shortly before disappearing.
Harrison had spent years turning heartbreak into anger.
Now Elena stood in front of him, thinner than he remembered, her face pale with shock.
And four boys who looked exactly like him were calling her Mom.
One child tugged Elena’s coat.
“Mommy, is that the man from your picture?”
Elena closed her eyes.
Harrison felt the floor disappear beneath him.
“What picture?”
“Jamie,” Elena whispered.
The boy pointed innocently toward Harrison.
“The picture Mommy keeps in the blue box.”
Harrison took one step forward.
“Elena.”
She immediately moved between him and the children.
That frightened him more than anything.
She was protecting them from him.
“Are they mine?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
She did not answer.
“Elena, are those boys my sons?”
The restroom door opened again.
A restaurant employee stared at them awkwardly.
Elena gathered the children.
“We need to leave.”
Harrison caught her wrist.
She flinched.
He released her instantly.
“Six years,” he said. “I thought you left because you wanted money. I thought you—”
“I never took your money.”
His entire body went still.
“What?”
Elena looked toward the hallway as if expecting someone.
“You shouldn’t be here with us.”
“I’m supposed to be here. My engagement dinner is across town.”
Something broke across her face.
“You’re getting married?”
“In a few hours.”
One of the boys looked between them.
“Mom?”
Elena forced a smile for him.
“Go wait by the door with your brothers, sweetheart.”
When the boys moved away, Harrison lowered his voice.
“Tell me the truth.”
Her gaze settled on the diamond-shaped outline visible beneath his jacket.
“You want the truth today?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re going to hate people you love.”
A chill ran down his spine.
Before he could respond, Elena’s phone buzzed.
She looked at the screen.
All color disappeared from her face.
Harrison saw only part of the message.
YOU WERE WARNED NOT TO BRING THEM BACK TO MANHATTAN.
Elena deleted it instantly.
“Who sent that?”
“No one.”
“That wasn’t no one.”
She grabbed the boys’ hands.
Harrison stepped in front of the door.
“I’m not letting you disappear again.”
“Move.”
“Not until you tell me why four children who look exactly like me exist.”
Her voice cracked.
“Because I was pregnant when they forced me out of your life.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Harrison stared at her.
“Forced?”
“I found out I was carrying quadruplets two days before your mother came to my apartment.”
His blood turned cold.
“My mother?”
Elena’s eyes shone with six years of buried fear.
“She told me that if I ever told you about the babies, she would make sure I lost them.”
Harrison shook his head.
“No.”
“She had lawyers. Doctors. Private investigators. She knew things about my family that I had never told anyone.”
“Elena—”
“She showed me documents proving she could destroy my father, take my mother’s house, and convince a court I was unstable.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She also told me something else.”
Harrison could barely speak.
“What?”
Elena looked toward the four little boys.
Then back at him.
“She said Brielle Carrington had already been chosen for you.”
Harrison’s stomach twisted.
Six years ago, he had barely known Brielle.
Tonight he was supposed to marry into her family.
Elena pushed past him.
“Harrison, if you ever cared about me, let us leave.”
He followed her into the restaurant.
Then stopped.
Across the dining room, near the front windows, a man in a gray coat lowered his phone.
Harrison recognized him.
Marcus Dane.
Head of security for Harrison’s mother.
Marcus turned and walked quickly outside.
Harrison looked at Elena.
She had seen him too.
Her hand tightened around her son’s shoulder.
“I told you,” she whispered.
“This never ended.”
Harrison pulled the velvet ring box from his pocket.
For three seconds he stared at the diamond he had planned to place on Brielle Carrington’s finger.
Then he closed his fist around it.
At seven o’clock, nearly two hundred guests would be waiting for a proposal.
But Harrison Vale was no longer going to the conservatory to ask a question.
May you like
He was going there to demand answers.
And this time, nobody was going to make Elena disappear.
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