Chapter 4 - The Lake Forest Perimeter
The house in Lake Forest was an old, turn-of-the-century stone manor surrounded by ten acres of ancient oak trees and a high wrought-iron fence that kept the paparazzi from the North Shore at bay. It was a home built from old timber, thick wool rugs, and the permanent noise of three small boys who believed the world had been created specifically for their amusement.
At seven o'clock on Thursday morning, the gravel driveway crunched beneath the weight of a vehicle that didn't belong in the neighborhood.
I watched from the second-story nursery window as Blake’s silver Aston Martin came to a halt beside my practical hybrid SUV. He didn't have his security team with him this time; he was alone, wearing a simple navy sweater and dark jeans, looking smaller and less dangerous than he ever had in New York.
He stood by the car door for three long minutes, his head tilted back as he looked up at the stone chimney, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets as if he were trying to remember how to breathe without a corporate script.
"Emma," my mother, Sarah, said from behind me, her hand resting gently on my shoulder. She had been the one who held my hair back during the brutal morning sickness of 2022 while the New York tabloids were running stories about Blake’s new yacht. "He’s been sitting at the gate since five this morning, sweetie. Arthur checked his plates. He didn't even turn the heater on."
"He thinks he can buy his way into the nursery, Mom," I said, my knuckles white against the windowsill.
"He can’t," Sarah said softly. "But look at Lucas, Emma. He’s got that same little twist in his left foot when he runs. He’s going to ask questions by Christmas."
I let out a long, ragged breath and walked down the wide oak staircase. When I opened the front door, the autumn wind from the lake swept across the porch, carrying the smell of dry leaves and frozen water.
Blake was standing at the bottom of the steps. He looked exhausted, the skin beneath his eyes dark and shadowed, his mouth dry.
"I brought something," he said, his voice barely carrying over the wind. He reached into the passenger seat of his car and pulled out three identical, beautifully crafted wooden toolboxes with the words Harrington Engineering stamped into the cedar sides. "I... I remember you said in an interview once that you wanted them to know how things were built. Not just how they were bought."
I looked at the toolboxes. They weren't from an expensive toy store in Manhattan; they were vintage salesman samples from the 1950s, their small steel hinges oiled and polished by hand.
"They're sleeping, Blake," I said, not stepping aside from the doorway.
"Can I just... can I just sit on the porch?" he asked, his voice dropping into a register of pure, unadulterated pleading that I had never heard from him in the seven years we had been together. "I won't make a sound, Emma. I just want to hear the house when they wake up."
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I looked at this man—this titan of the energy markets who had once cleared an entire floor of the Waldorf Astoria because he didn't like the color of the curtains—and realized that the punishment had already exceeded the crime. The silence he had left me with five years ago had traveled across the country and settled directly into his own chest.
"The kitchen is down the hall," I said, stepping back from the door. "The coffee is old. Don't wake Leo."
