Chapter 1
The man who had come to take my hotel walked through its doors—and I knew him before he looked up.
Julian Cross.
Six years had sharpened him. His dark hair was shorter, his shoulders broader beneath a charcoal coat. But he still carried himself like the world would move before he had to.
The last time I saw him, he was asleep beside me while snow covered Manhattan.
Three weeks later, I wrote to tell him I was pregnant.
His answer came from a lawyer.
A check. A confidentiality agreement. One sentence telling me never to contact him again.
Now he stood in the lobby of the Harbor House.
My hotel.
At least until Friday.
"Ms. Bennett?"
The woman beside him held out her hand.
"I’m Claire Mills from Cross Hotels."
I forced myself to shake it.
Behind the front desk, two employees pretended not to watch. They had families, rent, medical bills. They were waiting for me to save their jobs.
I had prepared to ask a faceless billionaire for thirty more days. I had not prepared to keep my daughter hidden from Julian.
His gaze moved across the faded blue walls and old wooden staircase. Then it reached me.
He stopped.
"Nora?"
My name sounded too familiar in his voice.
Claire looked between us.
"You know each other?"
"No," I said.
"Yes," Julian said at the same time.
His expression hardened.
I lifted my chin.
"We met once."
His eyes stayed on mine.
"It was more than once."
It had been two evenings and one night.
That was all.
It had also been enough to give me Ruby.
I glanced toward the staircase. Ruby was supposed to be upstairs with Mrs. Alvarez until this meeting ended.
She was safe.
She was out of sight.
For now.
"Can we discuss the hotel?" I asked.
Julian removed his gloves slowly.
"I didn’t know this place belonged to you."
"There are many things you don’t know about me."
Something moved behind his eyes, but it disappeared quickly.
Claire opened a folder.
"As explained in the notice, Cross Hotels will take control of the property on Friday. The hotel will close while the company decides what to do with it."
As if my mother had not spent thirty years keeping this place alive. As if I had not grown up folding towels in the laundry room and doing homework behind the front desk.
"There are twenty-three people working here," I said.
"Some have been here since I was a child."
Julian looked past me at the employees.
"They’ll receive final pay and help finding other jobs," Claire said.
"They don’t want other jobs."
"Nora."
Julian’s voice was quieter now.
"The hotel has been losing money for years."
"I need thirty days."
"To do what?"
"Show you it can survive."
His attention returned to me. For one dangerous second, I saw the man who had listened to me talk until three in the morning while snow trapped us inside a hotel bar.
"Thirty days won’t change the numbers."
"It might change your decision."
"My decisions are based on facts."
"And people aren’t facts?"
His jaw tightened.
I needed thirty days to save the only home Ruby had ever known.
"The hotel closes Friday," he said.
Then I heard small footsteps on the stairs.
My blood turned cold.
"Mommy?"
Ruby stood halfway down the staircase, wearing her yellow coat and carrying her school backpack.
Mrs. Alvarez appeared behind her.
"I’m sorry, Nora. She heard voices."
"It’s okay."
My answer came too quickly.
"Ruby, go back upstairs."
But Ruby wasn’t looking at me.
She was staring at Julian.
Her gray-blue eyes—the eyes I saw every morning and had spent six years trying not to recognize—widened slowly.
Julian stared back.
Ruby reached into the side pocket of her backpack and pulled out an old photograph. I had hidden it in my desk at home, beneath unpaid bills and tax papers.
It had been taken at the hotel conference in Manhattan. Julian stood beside me in the picture, his hand resting lightly against my back.
Ruby looked down at the photograph.
Then she looked at him again.
"You’re the man in Mommy’s picture."
Julian’s face lost all expression.
I moved toward her.
"Ruby—"
She stepped around me and stopped in front of him.
At five years old, she already had his eyes, his stubborn chin, and the small crease between her eyebrows whenever she was trying to solve something.
She studied Julian’s face.
"Your eyes look like mine," she said.
Julian went completely still.
Ruby looked up at me.
"Mommy," she whispered,
"is he my dad?"
No one in the lobby moved.
Julian slowly lifted his eyes to mine.
"How old is she?"