Chương 5
“That is what people say right before something collapses.”
The call ended shortly after.
Not because Helena wanted it to.
Because Garrett had ended it first.
She stared at the phone.
Eleanor watched her carefully.
“Problem?”
“Yes.”
“Can I help?”
“No.”
Eleanor nodded.
She did not look offended.
That was another reason Helena trusted her.
“You always say that before accepting help later.”
Helena looked up.
“That is an unfair observation.”
“It is also accurate.”
The board meeting began at nine.
By eleven, Helena knew something was wrong.
Not because anyone admitted it.
Because nobody did.
People who were comfortable disagreed.
People who were afraid became careful.
Three board members avoided direct answers.
Two asked questions they already knew the answers to.
One suddenly became interested in a report that had not mattered yesterday.
Helena sat at the end of the table listening.
She had spent years learning that meetings revealed more through hesitation than statements.
Then a document appeared on the screen.
A financial analysis.
A recommendation.
A warning.
The company acquisition they had been discussing for months was being questioned.
And the person presenting the concerns was someone Helena trusted.
“Who prepared this?” she asked.
The executive presenting it glanced down.
“An outside consultant.”
“Name?”
A pause.
Small.
But there.
“Northbridge Advisory.”
Helena looked at the report again.
Something felt wrong.
Not with the numbers.
With the timing.
Her phone remained silent beside her.
For once, she wished it would ring.
She wished for a distraction.
Instead, she looked around the table and saw something she had not expected.
Not opposition.
Fear.
Someone in that room knew more than they were saying.
And somewhere between the flowers on her desk and the man who had defended her without asking for anything, Helena realized something uncomfortable.
The safest person she had met in years might be the one person who had no idea how dangerous her world actually was.
The safest person she had met in years might be the one person who had no idea how dangerous her world actually was.
Callum spent the rest of the morning pretending he was not checking his phone every few minutes.
He failed.
The first time was accidental.
The second time was curiosity.
By the seventh time, Ruby noticed.
She was sitting across from him at the kitchen table, eating toast and drawing something on a piece of paper covered with colored markers.
“You keep looking at your phone.”
Callum looked up.
“I do not.”
“You just did.”
“I was checking the time.”
“You have a watch.”
He looked at his wrist.
She was right.
The small victory on her face reminded him that nine-year-olds were basically tiny lawyers with better snacks.
“Your mother would be proud,” he said.
Ruby shrugged.
“She says I am good at noticing things.”
Callum looked down.
There were some sentences children repeated without knowing how much weight they carried.
Diane had been gone for almost three years.
Not completely.
Not the dramatic kind of gone people wrote songs about.
She called.
She visited when schedules allowed.
She sent gifts that usually arrived late because she was always trying to make up for the time she missed.
But there was a difference between being present sometimes and building a life around someone.
Ruby knew the difference.
Callum hated that she knew.
“Who are you texting?” Ruby asked.
“Nobody.”
“That is a lie.”
He looked at her.
“Excuse me?”
“You do the face.”
“What face?”
“The face where you are trying to look normal.”
Callum stared.
“That is not a face.”
“It is.”
She returned to her drawing.
“You do it when you are worried.”
“I am not worried.”
“You are.”
He wanted to argue.
Instead, he reached across the table and stole a piece of her toast.
She immediately pulled the plate away.
“That is theft.”
“You are nine.”
“And?”
“And you cannot accuse your father of theft before school.”
“I can if it is true.”
Callum smiled.
There it was.
The normal part of his life.
The part that existed before billionaires and boardrooms and men in expensive suits.
He needed that.
Maybe more than he realized.
At work, the newspaper office felt smaller than usual.
The building had always been old.
Not charming old.
Actually old.
The kind of old where the elevator complained every morning and everyone knew which doors needed to be pushed twice before they closed.
Callum liked it.
The imperfections made sense.
People were imperfect too.
His editor, Margaret Lewis, dropped a folder on his desk.
“You look distracted.”
Callum looked up.
“I am working.”
“You are staring at the same paragraph for five minutes.”
“I am considering the wording.”
“You are considering something else.”
Callum closed the document.
“Is everyone suddenly an expert at reading me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you are terrible at hiding things.”
He leaned back.
“That is rude.”
“It is accurate.”
Margaret picked up the folder again.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Another lie.”
Callum sighed.
“It was just dinner.”
“With?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation answered the question.
Margaret raised an eyebrow.
“Interesting.”
“Please do not say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you are about to make my personal life into a newspaper investigation.”
“I work in newspapers. Everything becomes an investigation.”
He shook his head.
“It was just dinner.”
“Then why do you look like someone accidentally handed you a problem you do not want to solve?”
Because that was exactly what happened.
Helena Carrington was not a problem.
That was the issue.
Problems were easy.
Problems had solutions.
People did not.
“I met someone who lives differently than I do,” he said.
Margaret sat down.
“Rich?”
“Very.”
“Famous?”
“Kind of.”
“Dangerous?”
Callum looked at her.
She smiled slightly.
“I was joking.”
“Apparently everyone asks better questions than I do.”
“That is because you are usually the one asking.”
He looked toward the office window.
May you like
Outside, people walked through the city carrying coffee cups and phones and their own invisible problems.
“She is actually normal,” he said.
