Chapter 9 - TEN PERCENT PLUS INTEREST
Three months later, the warm July breeze off Lake Michigan drifted across the terraced gardens of the Sullivan estate in Lake Forest—though anyone visiting from Chicago society wouldn't have recognized the place.
The somber black iron gates and armed syndicate lookouts were gone. In their place stood a sprawling white timber treehouse Ethan had spent four weekends building with his own hands (and a great deal of blueprint criticism from Noah), alongside a heated greenhouse where Victoria—now living in the guest cottage down the lane—was patiently teaching Sophie how to prune white heirloom roses.
On the sunlit stone patio, I stood beside a long banquet table draped in crisp white linen, adjusting the collar of Noah’s navy blazer before the afternoon family picnic began.
“Hold still for two seconds, Noah,” I laughed, brushing a crumb off his lapel. “Your father’s board of directors from the hospital foundation will be here in twenty minutes.”
“I’m ten, Mom, not a mannequin,” Noah protested, though he stood tall as Ethan walked out through the French doors carrying a mahogany cake stand stacked high with double-chocolate cupcakes.
Three months of fatherhood had transformed Ethan Sullivan in ways that still made my heart skip a beat every morning when I woke up beside him. The cold, guarded mask he had worn on television was gone. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, a smudge of chocolate frosting on his wrist from helping Sophie in the kitchen, his gray eyes warm and bright as he set the tray down and wrapped his arm around my waist.
“How’s the startup capital portfolio looking, Mr. Chief Financial Officer?” Ethan asked Noah seriously, handing him a leather-bound folder stamped with the logo of S&N Junior Ventures.
Noah’s eyes lit up behind his glasses as he opened the folder.
True to the promise Noah had demanded before the gala, Ethan hadn't just set up a trust fund—he had established a real hundred-thousand-dollar educational investment seed account where Noah pitched green-tech and robotics stocks at the dinner table every Friday night.
“Up four point two percent since June,” Noah announced proudly. “Which means you owe me an extra robotics kit before school starts in September.”
“Done,” Ethan chuckled, ruffling his son’s hair before looking toward the garden path as Sophie came running up in her favorite blue sparkly dress, holding a small velvet jewelry box in one hand and Victoria’s hand in the other.
Victoria stopped at the bottom of the patio steps, looking healthier and lighter than she had in a decade. Every Tuesday and Thursday, she volunteered at the St. Luke’s Free Clinic on the South Side—the very clinic where I had once stood in the rain—funding free prenatal care for single mothers across Cook County.
“Look what Grandma helped me polish at the jeweler’s!” Sophie beamed, climbing up between Ethan and me and flipping open the velvet box.
Inside lay the miniature gold swan locket my father had given me when I was twelve—no longer broken in two pieces.
A master goldsmith had repaired the hinge, polished the wings until they gleamed in the July sunlight, and set two tiny gray diamonds into the swan’s eyes—one for Noah, and one for Sophie.
And inside the locket, over the twelve digits that had once unlocked a crypt of dirty secrets, rested a tiny, laser-etched family portrait taken the week after last night’s madness ended: Ethan and me standing on the shore of Lake Michigan with our arms wrapped around both of our twins.
Ethan lifted the gold chain from the box and fastened it gently around my neck, his warm fingers lingering against my collarbone as he looked down into my eyes.
“Do you have the other thing, Sophie?” Ethan asked softly.
Sophie giggled and pulled a small wooden picture frame from behind her back.
Mounted inside the frame, against a background of dark blue velvet, were the three crumpled ten-dollar bills I had carried in my purse for ten long years.
Except underneath them, written in Ethan’s bold black handwriting on a check made out to the Robert Miller & Claire Sullivan Children’s Medical Foundation, was a paid receipt for Fifty Million Dollars.
And across the bottom of the mat, Noah and Sophie had written in gold marker:
PAID IN FULL — NO REFUNDS ON DADDY.
Tears stung the corners of my eyes, warm and effortless, washing away the last lingering shadow of Lower Wacker Drive.
“You know,” I whispered, resting my palms against Ethan’s chest as the breeze ruffled the canopy overhead, “according to my calculations, four percent compounded interest on thirty dollars was only forty-four dollars and forty cents.”
May you like
Ethan leaned down, pressing his forehead gently against mine while Sophie hugged my waist and Noah grinned beside us.
“You gave me back ten years I didn't deserve, Claire,” Ethan murmured against my lips, his voice rough with a devotion that neither time nor Chicago could ever shake again. “Consider the rest a down payment on the next fifty.”
