The Reading of the Will
The Name on the Deed

Her Eyes

August 25, 2026 · Part 3 of 10 · 2 min

The woman in the doorway looked to be in her mid-twenties, dressed like she'd come straight from a job that didn't pay enough — flat shoes, a coat one size too big, hands stuffed deep in the pockets like she was bracing herself. But it was the eyes Naomi couldn't stop staring at. Pale gray, slightly hooded at the corners. Gregory's eyes. She'd looked into them for over two decades.

"I'm sorry," the woman said. "I didn't want to do this today. Mr. Castellan said it had to be today."

"Who are you?" Naomi asked, though some cowardly part of her already knew the shape of the answer, if not the details.

"Sable. Sable Quinn." She glanced at Callum, then back at Naomi, like she was searching for permission to keep talking. "I didn't know about the house until this morning. I want you to believe that. I didn't ask for it. I didn't even know your husband owned it until Mr. Castellan called me."

"You knew my husband," Naomi said. It wasn't a question.

Sable's jaw tightened, the same way Callum's did, and Naomi felt something cold move through her chest at the resemblance. "I've known him my whole life," Sable said quietly. "He used to come every few months. Birthdays, mostly. My mother always said he was an old family friend."

"And you believed that?"

"I believed it until I was about sixteen," Sable said. "Then I stopped asking, because every time I did, he looked like it hurt him more than it hurt me."

Callum stood up so fast his chair scraped the floor. "You're saying he's your father."

Sable didn't answer right away. Instead she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a photograph, its edges soft and worn from handling, and set it on the table between them without a word.

It was Gregory — younger, unmistakably Gregory — holding an infant wrapped in a yellow blanket, on a hospital bed Naomi had never seen, in a year she was almost certain matched the year before her wedding.

Continue the story Part 4: The Ledger →

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