“Yes, you can.”

Phillip opened the door for the room service waiter, directed him to set the tray on the table in front of the sofa. He dispatched him quickly, with cash and a generous tip.

“Try the soup,” he ordered. “You need something in your system or the medication’s going to end up making you nauseous. My mother was a doctor, remember.”

“All right.” She spooned it up slowly, telling herself it was just more medicine. “Thank you. I’m sure you’re not in the mood to be kind.”

“It’s harder for me to kick you when you’re down. Eat up, Sybill, and we’ll go a round or two.”

She sighed. The leading edge of the headache was dulling. She could handle it now, she thought. And him as well. “I hope you’ll at least attempt to understand my point of view on this. Gloria called me a few weeks ago. She was desperate, terrified. She told me she’d lost Seth.”

“Lost him?” Phillip let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “Oh, that’s rich.”

“I thought abduction at first, but I was able to get some of the details out of her. She explained that your family had him, had taken him from her. She was almost hysterical, so afraid she’d never get him back. She didn’t have the money to pay her lawyer. She was fighting an entire family, an entire system all alone. I wired her the money for the lawyer, and I told her I’d help. That she should wait until I contacted her.”

As her system began to settle again, she reached for one of the rolls in the basket beside her bowl and broke it open. “I decided to come and see the situation for myself. I know Gloria doesn’t always tell the entire truth, that she can slant things to suit her position. But the fact remains that your family had Seth and she didn’t.”

“Thank God for that.”

She stared at the bread in her hand, wondered if she could manage to put it in her mouth and chew. “I know you’re providing him with a good home, but she’s his mother, Phillip. She has a right to keep her own son.”

He watched her face carefully, measured the tone of her voice. He didn’t know whether to be furious or baffled by both. “You actually believe that, don’t you?”

Color was seeping back into her cheeks. Her eyes had cleared and now met his steadily. “What do you mean?”

“You believe that my family took Seth, that we took advantage of some poor single mother down on her luck and snatched the kid, that she wants him back. That she even has a lawyer working on custody.”

“You do have him,” Sybill pointed out.

“That’s right. And he’s exactly where he belongs and is going to stay. Let me give you some facts. She blackmailed my father, and she sold Seth to him.”

“I know you believe that, but—”

“I said facts, Sybill. Less than a year ago, Seth was living in a set of filthy rooms on the Block in Baltimore, and your sister was on the stroll.”