Chapter 2 - The Woman Vanessa Recognized
Vanessa recovered quickly.
Too quickly.
She laughed as if Marina had told a bad joke.
“What bridge?”
Marina stared at her.
“I don’t know.”
“You just said you remembered one.”
“I saw something.”
Marina touched her temple.
“Rain.”
“Headlights.”
“A railing.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“This woman is clearly unstable.”
Logan turned toward Marcus.
“Close the ballroom doors.”
Guests began murmuring again.
Vanessa stared at him.
“Logan.”
“No one is being detained.”
He looked at the crowd.
“But nobody needs to turn this into entertainment either.”
Logan asked Marcus to escort the guests into the east reception room while staff quietly ended the party.
Within minutes, congratulations had turned into suspicious whispers.
The engagement celebration was over.
No announcement had been made.
Yet everyone understood something had broken.
Logan led Marina and Noah into his private library.
Vanessa followed.
Logan stopped her at the doorway.
“Not yet.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I want five minutes with her.”
“I’m your fiancée.”
“And he is my son.”
Vanessa glanced at Noah.
The child immediately tightened his grip on Marina.
Logan noticed.
Again.
“Five minutes.”
He closed the door.
For several seconds, he simply watched Marina.
She was younger than Elena had been.
At least she appeared younger.
Her dark hair was cut just below her shoulders.
A faint scar disappeared beneath her jawline.
Another thin scar curved beside her right temple.
He had noticed neither before.
“Who are you?”
Logan asked.
“Marina Ellis.”
“That’s what your employment records say.”
“That is my name.”
“Where were you born?”
Marina hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Logan frowned.
She lowered her eyes.
“I was found eighteen months ago outside a hospital in northern Pennsylvania.”
Noah remained curled against her chest.
“I had identification when I woke up.”
“The name said Marina Ellis.”
“But you don’t remember your life?”
“Pieces.”
“What kind of pieces?”
“A blue nursery.”
“A lake.”
“A man laughing in a kitchen.”
“A baby crying.”
Marina’s voice cracked.
“And sometimes this house.”
Logan stopped breathing.
“You remembered Mercer House before you worked here?”
“I dreamed about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Tell them what?”
Marina looked embarrassed.
“That I dreamed about a mansion belonging to a billionaire I had never met?”
Logan sat opposite her.
“How did you get this job?”
“A staffing agency.”
“Which one?”
“Benton Household Services.”
Logan knew the name.
Vanessa had chosen that agency herself.
His stomach turned.
Marina shifted Noah.
The movement exposed something beneath her collar.
A silver chain.
Logan stared.
“What’s around your neck?”
Marina instinctively covered it.
“I’ve always had it.”
“May I see it?”
She hesitated before pulling out a small silver pendant.
Logan went completely still.
It was half of a broken circle.
A tiny letter N was engraved into the edge.
Logan opened his shirt collar with shaking fingers.
He wore the other half.
Elena had given it to him the night Noah was born.
One half for her.
One half for him.
Two pieces forming a circle around their son’s initial.
Marina stared at his pendant.
Her lips parted.
“No.”
She whispered it.
“No.”
Logan placed the two pieces together.
They matched perfectly.
Marina began shaking.
A flash tore through her mind.
Hospital lights.
A newborn against her chest.
Logan beside her.
His face younger.
Tired.
Crying.
And herself whispering something she could not fully hear.
Then another image came.
Vanessa standing at the foot of the hospital bed.
Watching.
Marina dropped the pendant.
“Oh, God.”
Logan reached for her.
“What?”
May you like
She looked at him with terror.
“I know you.”
