Chương 2
“Clear the room,” Adrian said.
Elliot hesitated.
The hesitation was barely visible, but it had never happened before.
“All guests,” Adrian added. “No exceptions. Take names of anyone who refuses to surrender a recording. Do not touch anyone. Do not threaten anyone. Ask the orchestra and service staff to remain until we can speak to them privately.”
A foundation trustee stepped forward. “Adrian, the governor’s office—”
“Everyone.”
The trustee looked offended, then frightened by his own offense.
Mara moved toward the stage and took the microphone from its stand.
“There has been a private family emergency,” she said. “Cars will be brought around immediately. The foundation will contact each of you tomorrow.”
A man near the bar called out, “Is that your daughter?”
Julia closed her eyes.
The question passed through the room like broken glass.
Adrian stood at last, though he kept one of Sophie’s hands in his. He did not answer the man. He looked down at Sophie.
“Would it be all right if we went somewhere quieter?”
Sophie glanced at Elena.
Elena nodded, but she did not move closer to Adrian.
“There’s a library through those doors,” Julia said.
It was the first time she had spoken.
Adrian looked at his wife. For one second, everything they had not yet said sat between them. Then Julia turned and walked toward the library without waiting for anyone.
Margaret began to follow.
“No,” Mara said.
Their mother stopped.
“You stay here.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “Mara.”
“I found the letters.”
No one in the family line seemed to breathe.
Mara’s voice dropped, but the ballroom had emptied enough that it carried.
“I found all of them.”
Margaret’s mouth opened.
Adrian looked from his sister to his mother.
“What letters?”
Mara did not answer him immediately. Her expression, usually impatient and hard, softened when she looked at Sophie. She crouched far enough away not to crowd her.
“Would you like some hot chocolate?” she asked.
Sophie considered this with the seriousness of someone who suspected adults had become unreliable.
“With little marshmallows?”
“If the kitchen has them.”
“They always have them,” Julia said from the library doorway. “I checked.”
It was an odd thing to say. The smallness of it made Elena’s face crumple, though she recovered before Sophie looked back at her.
Julia held the door open.
Elena led Sophie into the library. Adrian followed, then Mara. Julia entered last and closed the door in Margaret’s face.
The library had been designed to suggest inherited intelligence. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held leather-bound books no member of the family had selected. A marble fireplace burned gas behind a brass screen. On the center table lay a decorative chessboard with every piece in its proper starting position.
Sophie sat on the edge of a leather sofa.
Adrian lowered himself into a chair across from her but seemed uncomfortable being higher than she was. After a moment, he moved to the carpet and sat with his back against the chair.
Elena remained standing.
Julia went to the bar and poured water into four glasses. She poured a fifth, stared at it, then emptied it into the sink.
Mara watched her.
“Julia,” Adrian said.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“Not yet,” she said. “I’m trying very hard not to make this about me in front of a six-year-old.”
Sophie leaned toward Elena. “Is she mad?”
Julia heard.
“Yes,” she said. “But not at you.”
Sophie nodded as though this distinction mattered and returned her attention to Adrian.
He rubbed his thumb over his wedding ring without seeming aware of it.
“What letters?” he asked Mara.
Mara took a key from the small gold purse hanging at her wrist.
“They’re in Father’s old office. I found them three weeks ago when the estate lawyers asked me to inventory the private file room.”
“Three weeks?”
“I needed to know whether they were real.”
“You needed three weeks?”
“I called Elena the same day.”
Adrian looked at Elena.
She finally sat beside Sophie, though she kept one arm around the child’s back.
“Mara said she found letters with my name,” Elena said. “She sent photographs of the envelopes. I recognized my handwriting.”
“Why tonight?”
Mara’s jaw tightened.
“Because Mother refused to come to a private meeting. Because your assistant canceled three appointments I scheduled without telling you. Because the family counsel said the letters were estate property and threatened Elena if she spoke publicly. Because I decided privacy was the weapon they had used the first time.”
“You brought a child into a ballroom full of cameras.”
“I brought your daughter into a room where they couldn’t make her disappear.”
The words struck with enough force that Julia put down the glass she was holding.
Adrian stared at his sister.
“You should have told me.”
“I tried.”
“You run half the foundation. You know how to reach me.”
“I knew how to reach your office.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” Mara said. “Apparently it isn’t.”
A knock came at the library door.
Julia opened it a few inches. A server stood outside holding a tray with a silver pot, a cup, and a bowl of miniature marshmallows. His expression was composed with the heroic effort of someone determined not to acknowledge the billionaire sitting on the carpet.
“For the young lady,” he said.
“Thank you, Luis,” Julia replied.
The server glanced at Sophie. “Extra marshmallows.”
Sophie’s shoulders relaxed for the first time.
Julia brought the tray to the sofa. She poured the drink herself, tested the side of the cup with her fingers, and added six marshmallows. Sophie counted them before taking the cup in both hands.
No one spoke while she drank.
May you like
Adrian watched the marshmallows dissolve.
He had spent the previous month negotiating a logistics acquisition involving seven countries, three regulatory agencies, and enough debt to frighten men who claimed not to be frightened by money. He could read a hostile balance sheet in minutes. He could detect weakness in a room before most people had taken their seats.
