Chương 6
The practical truth of it hurt more than disloyalty would have.
Livia looked at the violin case beside the sofa. She had been scheduled to perform Mendelssohn, the concerto she had played at seventeen when Eleanor first noticed her at a conservatory benefit. That performance led to grants, introductions, and years of patronage Livia had once described as generosity without conditions.
“Who is replacing me?”
“We haven’t decided.”
“Naomi can cover.”
“Livia—”
“She knows the program. Give her the fee.”
He was silent.
“Put that in writing,” she said.
When the call ended, Naomi leaned against the doorway.
“You volunteered me?”
“You need the money.”
“So do you.”
“I don’t want the audience wondering whether I’m going to expose the woodwinds.”
Naomi smiled despite herself. “The bassoons have been hiding something.”
The doorbell rang.
Both women froze.
Livia checked the building camera on her phone.
Adrian stood outside the apartment holding no coat despite the rain. He still wore the white shirt from his tuxedo, open at the collar. His hair had lost its careful shape. He looked less like a man arriving to explain than one who had not yet understood where he was.
Mara said not to let him in.
Livia did anyway.
Naomi muttered something in Spanish and moved to the far end of the living room. She did not leave.
Adrian entered and saw the ring on the counter.
His gaze remained there.
“How long have you known about the card?” Livia asked.
He closed the door behind him. “Since yesterday afternoon.”
“Before the meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Who put it in my clutch?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew it would happen.”
“Eleanor said she wanted you frightened enough to sign. I thought the card was a bluff.”
“You heard her tell me Camille would find it.”
“I thought she was describing what she could do.”
Livia stared at him.
Adrian rubbed the back of his neck. “That sounds insane now.”
“It sounded insane then.”
“I was trying to keep her talking. I needed time.”
“For what?”
“The financing. The funds were supposed to clear today.”
“You keep saying that as though restored money erases the theft.”
“It was not theft when it began. The trust advanced expenses to Rowan House. The documentation was improper, but there was a repayment agreement.”
“Did the board approve it?”
“No.”
“Did the scholarship committee know?”
“No.”
“Then stop using the word advanced.”
His face tightened. “I am not defending Eleanor.”
“You stood beside me while she pulled my dress.”
“I froze.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of her answer struck him harder than accusation.
He crossed toward the kitchen and stopped before the ring. He did not touch it.
“The card was issued from Eleanor’s office,” he said. “It was one of six unrestricted spares. I saw the inventory list.”
“Do you have it?”
“No.”
“Can you get it?”
“Possibly.”
Naomi laughed once from the window. “That means he doesn’t want to.”
Adrian looked at her. “This is between Livia and me.”
“No,” Livia said. “That ended when you let your employer search my bag.”
“She is not my employer.”
“She paid your mother’s medical debt. She arranged your first clerkship. She made you general counsel before you were thirty-five. What word would you prefer?”
His eyes closed briefly.
Livia had learned about the medical debt only after their engagement, when Adrian’s mother mentioned Eleanor’s generosity over dinner. Adrian had presented it as history. Now it stood in the room like a current obligation.
“I owe her,” he said. “I have never denied that.”
“You denied what it made you willing to do.”
“I did not plant the card.”
“You helped create the statement blaming me.”
His head lifted. “I revised language. I was trying to make it less damaging.”
“You corrected grammar in my confession.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be used.”
“You were in the room.”
His voice rose, not to a shout but enough that Naomi straightened. “I was trying to stop a collapse that would hurt hundreds of people.”
Livia’s hand moved to her abdomen.
Adrian saw it and lowered his voice immediately.
“There are employees, programs, families,” he said. “If the trust fails, Eleanor does not become poor. Everyone beneath her loses work.”
“And that made me acceptable.”
“No.”
“Then why was my name on the statement?”
He looked toward the floor.
The apartment became very quiet.
A delivery truck reversed in the street below, producing three mechanical beeps. Somewhere upstairs, a vacuum cleaner started. Naomi picked at a loose thread on the curtain.
Adrian said, “Because your access created a plausible explanation.”
Livia’s stomach turned.
He took a step toward her. “That was how Eleanor described it. Not me.”
“But you stayed.”
“I thought I could fix it before anything happened.”
“You thought you could fix everything except your own decision.”
He stopped.
For several seconds, they looked at each other across the kitchen where they had chosen cabinet colors, opened holiday gifts, and once danced badly at two in the morning because Livia could not sleep after a concert. The half-built wooden train remained on the table between them.
Adrian’s face changed first. Some part of him stopped preparing a defense.
“What do you need from me?” he asked.
“The card inventory. Every email about the transfers. The repayment agreement. The access logs. And the original statement.”
“If I take internal documents, I could lose my job.”
“You may lose it anyway.”
“I could face professional discipline.”
“Yes.”
He flinched.
Livia had not meant the answer cruelly. She was too tired to soften it.
“The recording is already public,” he said. “Eleanor cannot use the statement now.”
“This is not only about what she did to me.”
“I know.”
“No. You know how to say that.”
He looked at the ring once more.
“Are we finished?”
Livia wished he had asked whether she loved him. That question would have allowed an easier answer.
“We are not getting married.”
His breathing changed.
May you like
“What about the baby?”
“You are still her father.”
