Before Victoria could close the distance, a man sitting on a nearby bench stood up. He was dressed casually in a faded denim jacket, a thick gray sweater, and dark jeans.
Beside him sat a young girl, perhaps 9 years old, quietly reading a paperback book. « I’ve got it, buddy. » The man said. His voice was a rich, warm baritone. He crouched down, easily reaching over the water to dislodge the boat, handing it back to a beaming Harrison.
« Thank you. » Victoria said, stepping forward, slipping her designer sunglasses down to the bridge of her nose. « That was very kind of you. We would have been out here all day trying to The man turned around.
Victoria stopped dead in her tracks. The breath was violently knocked from her lungs as if she had walked headfirst into a sheet of invisible glass. She stared at the stranger.
Her heart began to hammer a frantic, sickening rhythm against her ribs. It wasn’t just a passing resemblance. It was a genetic carbon copy. The man standing in front of her had the exact same auburn hair sweeping back into an identical, sharp widow’s peak.
He had the same strong, square jawline. But what made the blood freeze in Victoria’s veins were his eyes. The man looking back at her had one piercing, icy blue eye and one deep, earthy hazel eye.
Statistical impossibility. The phrase flashed through Victoria’s analytical mind like a warning siren. The odds of a stranger sharing that exact hair, that exact facial structure, and the exact same rare heterochromia as her son were astronomical.
Victoria’s instincts, the same ruthless instincts that allowed her to dismantle rival corporations, flared instantly. She didn’t see a helpful stranger. She saw a breach in her security. She saw the anonymous donor from the Whittaker Institute who had somehow broken his ironclad nondisclosure agreement.
He had tracked them down. He was staging a coincidental meeting to extort a billionaire. The man offered a polite, somewhat confused smile noticing her intense stare. « It’s no problem at all.
The wind is pretty tricky off the water today. » He turned back toward his daughter. « Come on, Chloe. Let’s go get those pretzels. » « Wait. » Victoria commanded. The authority in her voice was absolute, stopping the man in his tracks.
