Chapter 3 - The Search on Grand
The rain had turned into a steady, gray fog by the time Grant’s sports car screeched to a halt outside the corporate offices of Brooks Strategic Group on the north side of the city.
The building was a modern glass-and-steel mid-rise, sitting in a newly developed commercial district that hadn't existed when Grant left Charlotte. It was clean, aggressive, and expensive—a physical manifestation of the woman Hannah had become.
Grant walked through the glass double doors, his hair damp, his bow tie gone, his collar open.
The receptionist, a young woman with neat spectacles, looked up from her computer. "Can I help you, sir?"
"I need to see Hannah Brooks," Grant said, his voice breathless. "It's urgent."
"Do you have an appointment? Ms. Brooks is in a closed board meeting with our regional partners."
"Tell her it's Grant Mercer."
The receptionist’s fingers hovered over her keyboard. Her eyes flickered to his rumpled suit jacket. "Sir, Ms. Brooks’s calendar is fully booked for the next three weeks. If you'd like to leave a card—"
"I don't have a card," Grant said, leaning over the desk. "Look, just tell her I'm here. It's about Emma and Sophie."
At the mention of the names, the receptionist’s professional mask cracked. She picked up her phone, spoke a few quiet words into the receiver, and then looked back at him with a serious expression. "Take the elevator to the fifth floor, Mr. Mercer. Her assistant will meet you."
When the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor, Grant was met not by an assistant, but by Hannah herself.
She stood in the center of a wide, minimalist hallway, flanked by glass-walled conference rooms where people in suits were writing on whiteboards. She had changed out of her wet navy coat into a tailored grey wool blazer and matching trousers. Her hair was pulled back into a neat, professional knot, but her eyes were just as tired as they had been at the bus stop.
"You left your own wedding," she said, her voice flat. It wasn't a question.
"How did you know?"
"Claire's father is on three boards in this city, Grant. News travels faster than the rain." She crossed her arms, looking at his unbuttoned shirt. "Why are you here?"
"They're my daughters, aren't they?" Grant asked, stepping toward her. "Emma and Sophie. They’re six. That means you were pregnant when I left for Boston."
Hannah did not look away. "Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me, Hannah? We lived together for four years. We shared a dog, for God’s sake. We had a life. You knew how to reach me. You knew where my office in Boston was."
"You told me I wasn't part of your future, Grant," she said, her voice dropping to a low, intense whisper that carried more pain than anger. "You packed two suitcases while I was at work, left a key on the counter, and sent a text from the airport. You wanted a clean slate. You wanted to build a kingdom. What was I supposed to do? Call you from an OB-GYN clinic and beg you to stay because of two pink lines on a plastic stick?"
"I would have stayed," Grant said, his chest tightening.
"No, you wouldn't," she said. "You would have stayed out of obligation, and every time your company had a bad quarter, every time you missed a meeting because of a sick child, you would have looked at me and wondered what your life would have been like if you hadn't been anchored to a junior analyst and two babies."
She stepped closer, her grey eyes reflecting the cold fluorescent lights of the office. "I didn't want a husband who looked at his children as a compromise, Grant. So I built my own company. I raised my own girls. And we did it without a single dollar from the Mercer estate."
"I want to know them, Hannah," he said, his voice cracking. "Please. I'll do whatever it takes. I'll walk away from the merger. I'll sell my shares in the development company. I don't care about the high-rises anymore."
Hannah looked at him, her expression softening just enough to reveal the girl he had loved seven years ago. "It's not that simple, Grant. You can't just walk into their lives because you had an epiphany at a bus stop. They don't know who you are."
May you like
"Then let me show them," he pleaded.
Before she could answer, her assistant stepped out of a nearby office, her face pale. "Ms. Brooks, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Richard Whitmore is on line one. He says if Mr. Mercer is in your office, he has exactly ten minutes to return to the estate before the liquidation papers for Mercer Development are filed."
