“That doesn't mean anything.”
Henry almost smiled, though nothing about the moment was funny.
“You are right.”
Lucy frowned.
“About what?”
“I don't know what tomorrow feels like to you.”
She looked at him.
“What would help?”
“I don't know.”
Henry thought for a moment.
Then he led Lucy and Emma downstairs to the pantry.
He cleared an entire shelf.
On a piece of cardboard, he wrote:
LUCY AND EMMA — PRIVATE FOOD. ASK BEFORE TOUCHING.
Emma immediately filled half of it with cookies.
Lucy remained still.
“No one throws this away?”
“No.”
“What if it's old?”
“We'll ask you first.”
“What if I want more?”
“Take more.”
“What if I don't ask?”
Henry considered.
“Take it anyway.”
Lucy touched the edge of the shelf.
Something in her shoulders relaxed.
Henry had built towers in Dubai, resorts in the Caribbean, and historic hotels restored stone by stone across Europe.
Yet that pantry shelf was the first thing he had built in years that mattered to him personally.
Days became weeks.
Henry reduced his schedule.
At first, the board complained.
Then Henry stopped caring.
He ate breakfast with the girls.
He learned that Emma disliked orange juice unless it had ice, while Lucy secretly loved strawberry jam but always gave the larger portion to her sister.
He discovered that neither girl knew how to swim.
He hired an instructor, then dismissed him when Lucy refused to enter the pool with a stranger.
Henry taught them himself.
He was terrible at it.
Emma thought this was hilarious.
Lucy laughed so hard one afternoon when Henry slipped on the wet tiles that she nearly fell into the water herself.
The sound stunned him.
Claire had laughed like that.
The Billionaire Who Lost His Daughter for Twelve Years—Until a Homeless Little Girl Walked Into His Gala and Called Him Grandpa
Chapter 5
Not identically, but close enough that memory rushed through him with such force he had to look away.
At night, Henry read stories.
Not because the girls requested it at first, but because Emma wandered into his library carrying a children's book and asked whether rich people knew how to read aloud.
Henry informed her that he had attended Harvard.
Emma replied, “That's not what I asked.”
Lucy laughed.
Henry read the book.
By the third night, they brought two.
By the end of the second week, Lucy had begun sitting closer.
Then one rainy evening, Henry found her at the piano.
She pressed a single key.
“Mom played?”
“Yes.”
“She said Grandma did too.”
Henry sat beside her.
“Your grandmother Eleanor played beautifully.”
“What was she like?”
“Opinionated.”
“What's that?”
“She believed she was right about everything.”
Lucy looked at him.
“Was she?”
“Usually.”
“Were you scared of her?”
“Constantly.”
That made Lucy smile.
Henry told her about Eleanor.
How they met.
How Eleanor once walked out of a charity dinner because Henry insulted a waiter.
How she forced him to apologize.
How Claire inherited her temper.
“Mom had a temper?”
“Oh yes.”
“She told me you did.”
Henry turned.
“She talked about me?”
Lucy became quiet.
“Sometimes.”
“What did she say?”
“That you worked too much.”
“Accurate.”
“That you hated cheap coffee.”
“Also accurate.”
“That when she was little, you checked under her bed for monsters even though you told her monsters weren't real.”
Henry's throat tightened.
“I did.”
“She said you were bad at braiding hair.”
“Terrible.”
“She said Grandma used to fix it after.”
He smiled sadly.
Lucy pressed another piano key.
Then she asked the question Henry had feared.
“If she loved you, why did she stay away?”
Henry took a long breath.
“Because Richard made her afraid.”
Lucy's face hardened.
“Of you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she believe him?”
“For a while.”
“Then she didn't trust you.”
Henry accepted the pain of it.
“No.”
Lucy thought about that.
“Does that make you angry?”
“Yes.”
“At her?”
Henry looked out at the rain.
“At myself.”
“Why?”
“Because people cannot use your mistakes against you unless there are mistakes to use.”
Lucy did not understand.
Henry explained.
“The last time your mother and I spoke, I said something cruel. Richard built his lie around it because he knew Claire would believe I might reject her.”
Lucy stared at the piano.
“What did you say?”
Henry hesitated.
Then told her.
Lucy remained silent for a long time.
“That was bad.”
“Yes.”
“Really bad.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn't have said it.”
“I know.”
“Would you say it now?”
Henry's eyes filled.
“Never.”
Lucy leaned against his arm.
“Then tell her when we find her.”
Not if.
When.
Henry nodded.
“I will.”
Chapter 05 — The Man Who Knew Too Much
The first real break came from something Claire had written in the margin of Mara's letter.
Three letters.
B.H.L.