I almost returned it unopened.
Instead, I sat at my kitchen table and read one page.
Kelsey,
You want to know whether I knew about Asterion before I met you.
Yes.
I stopped.
The rest waited beneath my hand.
I forced myself to continue.
I knew who your father was. I knew he had shares. I knew you were his only child.
I felt nothing.
Nothing at all.
Then:
But I did not expect you.
I laughed.
A horrible sound.
He wrote that he had intended only to become acquainted with me.
That he had never expected marriage.
That the coffee shop meeting was planned.
That our first date was not.
That our second date was.
That by six months, he told himself the money no longer mattered.
That after a year, he stopped asking my father questions.
That when my father died, Ryan found himself handling the estate and discovered the certificates were missing.
