I sat with that.
"She would cry," I said.
"She would absolutely cry." Something moved at the corner of his mouth — grief and amusement in the same expression, the specific combination of someone who loves a person completely. "She has been practicing not crying for three weeks, since the marker notification came. She is not succeeding."
I looked at my hands.
Twenty-two years. A mother practicing not crying. A father who built an empire around a single purpose and put a watcher on a building to make sure she was safe before he introduced himself.
"I want to meet her," I said.
"I know." He was very still. "Soon. When you're ready."
"Soon," I agreed.
Cressida Fairfax opened her folder. Set a photograph on the table.
It was not what I'd expected from a photograph. I'd been bracing for
