Chapter 13: Grey Eyes

Dalton's POV

The consent with my forged signature had been on my phone for hours, stamped 11:02, and Monica had not picked up when I called.

I got home at two in the morning and found every light in the penthouse on.

Whoever had forged my name had access to my study, and I meant to find out who.

Belinda had unpacked her suitcase into the guest room.

Archie was asleep in his yellow bed with a plastic dinosaur in his fist.

I had never seen that dinosaur before.

It was green, with a red tag on its foot that read ALDRIDGE HOLDINGS ANNIVERSARY GALA, and nobody had given it to him at a gala.

I took it out of his hand very gently.

Archie opened his eyes.

They were wide and grey and they looked straight through me, sleepy and pleased.

"Dal," he said. "Is the silver man coming back tomorrow?"

My hands stopped.

"Which silver man?"

"The one who brings the dinosaurs. He sits on the floor with me when you're at work."

He yawned and rolled over.

"He says I'm very smart," Archie mumbled. "Mama says not to tell."

I stood in the dark and listened to him breathe.

I thought of the chair in the boardroom, folding his hands, with his silver hair and his tidy grey eyes.

I thought of three years of Sunday dinners at which he had asked after the boy first and the company second.

I put the dinosaur on the shelf and went to the kitchen.

Belinda was at the island in a silk robe with a glass of water and her phone face down in front of her.

"You're back," she said. "Did you walk it off?"

"How long has he been coming here?"

"Who?"

"The man who brings the dinosaurs."

Her face did what it always did when she was caught, which was to go softer.

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