Chương 5
“Did he say why?”
“Not yet.”
Her phone buzzed again.
Both of them looked down.
Lewis’s new message read:
Because the wine invoices are not the only ones.
Mara’s mouth went dry.
Damian could see her expression but not the screen.
“What did he say?”
Mara hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
Until that second, she had assumed anything concerning Damian’s house belonged to Damian.
Now she was not sure.
Lewis had written to her.
Maybe because he trusted her.
Maybe because he did not trust Damian.
“Can we talk without Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“And without eight security guards?”
Damian glanced down the hallway.
“Probably better with one.”
Mara almost smiled despite herself.
He noticed.
“Sorry.”
“No. That was actually funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“That’s why.”
The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, but the small interruption helped.
They went to the staff dining room instead of one of the formal sitting rooms.
Mara chose it.
Damian looked faintly surprised when she pointed there, as though the existence of a staff dining room in his own house had become newly relevant.
It had a scarred oak table, twelve mismatched chairs, a bulletin board with schedule changes, and a refrigerator covered in magnets from places employees had gone on vacation.
Damian sat where Lewis usually sat.
Mara took the chair farthest from him.
One guard waited outside.
Damian put his phone on the table between them.
“What else has happened?”
Mara stared at the black screen.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
“How much do you know about what happens in this house when you’re gone?”
The question landed badly.
His shoulders tightened.
“Apparently not enough.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“No.” He rubbed a thumb along the edge of his phone. “It wasn’t.”
Mara waited.
Damian looked toward the schedule board.
“I know Lewis runs the staff. I know Vanessa started taking more responsibility for events when we got engaged. I know household expenses increased. I know I complained about it twice and then stopped looking because the amounts were small relative to everything else I manage.”
Mara gave him a flat look.
He caught it.
“I hear how that sounds.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Probably not.”
That answer slowed her anger more effectively than an excuse would have.
Mara took a breath.
“Vanessa started changing things after your engagement party.”
“Staffing?”
“Everything.”
Mara told him about the first dismissal.
A weekend housekeeper named Janie had been fired after Vanessa claimed she spoke disrespectfully in front of guests. Mara had been in the room. Janie had said, “Excuse me, ma’am, that table is still wet.”
Vanessa later described it as insubordination.
Then a driver lost his preferred schedule after refusing to collect Vanessa’s friend from a private airfield during hours he was supposed to take Damian’s father to a doctor’s appointment.
A cook was reduced to three shifts after objecting when Vanessa asked him to relabel wine bottles for an event.
Nobody called these things abuse.
They called them adjustments.
Scheduling.
Fit.
Discretion.
Mara had learned how much cruelty could hide inside professional vocabulary.
“What did Lewis do?” Damian asked.
“Documented.”
“And me?”
Mara looked at him.
“You signed the payroll changes.”
His face went still.
“I sign hundreds of things.”
“Yes.”
The word came out before she could soften it.
She did not soften it afterward.
Damian leaned back in the chair.
For a while the only sound was the refrigerator compressor turning on.
Mara had never sat across a table from him this way. Their conversations were usually practical.
Mr. Cross, the plumber needs access to the north bath.
Mr. Cross, Ms. Reed asked whether the blue room can be prepared.
Mr. Cross, your sister left a scarf.
People like Mara made wealthy lives frictionless partly by keeping friction out of sight.
She wondered how many disasters were born from that arrangement.
“Did Vanessa hit anyone else?” Damian asked.
“Not that I saw.”
“You?”
Mara looked at her arm.
“Not like tonight.”
“What does that mean?”
“She grabbed me once in June.”
“Where?”
“Kitchen.”
“Why?”
“I walked away while she was talking.”
Damian’s mouth tightened.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“To who?”
“Lewis.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He wrote it down.”
Damian stared at her.
Mara shrugged.
“That was the system.”
“What about me?”
“You were in Singapore.”
“You could have contacted me.”
Mara laughed then.
She did not mean to.
Damian’s eyebrows lifted.
“You think that’s funny?”
“A little.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m trying to imagine the email.”
She held up an invisible phone.
“Hello, Mr. Cross. Sorry to interrupt the merger, but your fiancée grabbed my elbow because I moved the peonies six inches.”
Damian looked away.
“That doesn’t make it less serious.”
“No. It makes it sound exactly as small as it feels when you’re the person deciding whether you can afford to make it serious.”
He looked back.
Mara’s voice had risen slightly. She lowered it.
“I need this job.”
Damian said, “You wouldn’t have lost it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“No. You know what you would like to believe you would have done.”
That stopped him.
Mara folded her arms, then unfolded them because the bruise hurt.
“I’ve worked for people who said the same thing. Everyone thinks they’re fair in a hypothetical situation.”
Damian’s phone lit up.
He looked at the screen but did not pick it up.
Mara noticed the caller name.
VANESSA.
The call stopped.
A message appeared.
Then another.
Damian turned the phone facedown.
“Keep going.”
Mara stared at the dark case.
“The invoices started maybe six months ago.”
“What invoices?”
“Things I noticed because I handled the physical side. Wine, flowers, linens, rented furniture. Not all the time. Sometimes the delivery was real but smaller than the bill. Sometimes nothing arrived.”
“Did Lewis know?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“He started keeping copies.”
“Why didn’t he bring them to the family office?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer bothered Mara now.
May you like
Lewis was not careless.
He could be afraid, but fear alone did not explain six months of silence.
