Chương 5
Lucy looked up at the word.
Ben lowered his voice.
“Did North Coast sign anything?”
Olivia did not answer.
Ben knew someone at North Coast.
He reached for his phone.
Olivia crossed the room quickly.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
They looked at each other.
The fear was visible now.
Not hysteria.
Not guilt performed badly.
Real fear.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Olivia shook her head.
“Nothing that explains what you’re doing right now.”
“What did you do?”
Richard said, “Olivia.”
She snapped, “I handled it.”
Richard went still.
Ben looked between them.
“You know about this?”
Richard did not answer.
Olivia closed her eyes.
“It was going to be funded.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I had verbal assurances.”
“From who?”
“Someone I knew there.”
“Who?”
“They left the company.”
Ben waited.
Olivia’s face hardened.
“You’re enjoying this.”
The accusation surprised him.
“What?”
“You’re enjoying finally being able to punish me for your mother dying.”
Ben stared at her.
Tessa looked away.
Richard whispered, “Liv.”
But Olivia had started and could not seem to stop.
“You have been angry for seven months. You’ve been angry at yourself. You’ve been angry at Margaret. You’ve been angry at me for not somehow fixing what happened. And now you have a maid telling you I’m the villain, and it is so much easier, isn’t it?”
Tessa’s face tightened at the word.
Ben heard something break inside himself, but not where Olivia intended.
Because a piece of what she said was true.
He had been angry.
He had blamed her for tiny things that had nothing to do with his mother.
The way she loaded the dishwasher.
The way she scheduled weekends.
The way she once said she was tired when he wanted to talk at midnight.
He had apologized each time.
Sometimes sincerely.
Sometimes because apologies were faster.
He looked at her.
“Maybe.”
Olivia blinked.
“I probably have punished you for things that weren’t yours.”
Some of the fury left her expression.
Ben continued.
“But that doesn’t answer whether you blocked my calls.”
Her face closed again.
“I told you why.”
“No. You told me what you thought of my reaction to my mother. You haven’t told me why you decided you had the right to make the decision for both of us.”
“She was trying to destroy us.”
The words came out before Olivia could soften them.
Silence.
Ben stared at her.
“There.”
Olivia swallowed.
Tessa looked at the floor.
Richard whispered, “Olivia, stop.”
But Ben finally understood the shape of it.
Not all of it.
Enough.
“My mother found out the pledge wasn’t real.”
Olivia said nothing.
“She threatened to tell me.”
Still nothing.
“And you decided that if she couldn’t talk to me, she couldn’t tell me.”
“That is not what happened.”
“What happened?”
Olivia’s eyes shone.
“She hated me.”
“She distrusted you.”
“She hated me.”
“Maybe she did.”
“You always make that distinction because it lets you pretend she was fair.”
Ben felt heat rise in his neck.
“I never said she was fair.”
“She called me ambitious like it was a disease. She asked whether I had ever loved anyone who couldn’t do something for me. She investigated my family.”
Richard looked sharply at his daughter.
“She what?”
Olivia ignored him.
“She called people I worked with. She went through foundation records looking for mistakes.”
Ben said, “Did she find one?”
Olivia stared at him.
“That’s all you care about?”
“At this exact moment? Yes.”
“I had secured the money.”
“From North Coast?”
“It was complicated.”
“Was there a signed commitment?”
“No.”
The single word changed the room.
Ben looked away.
Through the library doors, he could hear the ballroom returning to life in fragments. Chairs moved. People spoke in embarrassed clusters. Somewhere a glass shattered and someone apologized too loudly.
He thought about the foundation’s youth program.
Twenty-three teaching contracts had been issued after Olivia announced the pledge.
Space had been leased.
Supplies ordered.
His company had covered a short-term cash gap because Olivia assured the board the transfer was coming.
“How much did you know wasn’t real when you announced it?”
Olivia’s eyes filled fully now.
“I believed I could make it real.”
Ben closed his eyes.
There it was.
Not a cartoon villain.
Not a mastermind.
Something more ordinary.
She had wanted applause before she had earned it.
Then she had needed reality to catch up.
Margaret had noticed.
“What did my mother threaten to do?”
Olivia looked at Tessa as if she hated her for existing.
Tessa answered.
“She said she was going to tell you and the board.”
“And then?”
“She asked Olivia to leave.”
Olivia whispered, “She was cruel.”
Tessa’s voice stayed quiet.
“She was angry.”
“She said I would marry Ben over her dead body.”
Tessa paused.
“No.”
Olivia turned toward her.
“You weren’t in the room.”
“No. But she told me what she said.”
“And you believed her?”
Tessa’s hands shook again.
“She said she told you that if you loved him, you would tell him before she did.”
Olivia’s eyes closed.
Ben felt the sentence land.
He could hear his mother saying it.
Not because it was noble.
Because it was exactly the kind of unbearable ultimatum Margaret Hale would give someone at nine in the morning while wearing a cashmere robe.
He almost laughed.
Instead he had to sit down.
Father James moved toward him.
Ben lifted a hand.
“I’m fine.”
He wasn’t.
But he remained upright.
Tessa said, “Mrs. Hale asked for her phone after Olivia left. It was gone.”
Ben looked at Olivia.
“You took it?”
“I brought it back.”
“When?”
She did not answer.
“When?”
“The next day.”
“After you blocked me?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her.
“She had eleven days.”
Olivia’s face crumpled for a second.
“I know.”
“You took one of them.”
“Ben.”
“You took one.”
“I was going to fix it.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the problem.”
Lucy had become restless.
May you like
She slid off the chair and came to Tessa.
“I’m hungry.”
