Chương 4
“The board minutes say we declined it.”
“The market changed.”
“Without my vote?”
“It hasn’t closed.”
Camille’s fingers had stopped moving over the keyboard.
“How far?”
Julian said nothing.
Camille shut the laptop.
“How far?”
“There’s a term sheet.”
Maya sat back.
“A signed term sheet?”
“Nonbinding.”
“Signed?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“Me.”
“On behalf of what entity?”
Julian rubbed his jaw.
“Halcyon Development.”
Maya looked at Camille.
Camille’s expression told her enough.
Maya said, “That requires board approval above ten million.”
“It’s nonbinding.”
“How much?”
“Forty.”
Vanessa whispered, “Forty million?”
Julian said, “Potentially.”
Maya’s wrist had begun to throb in time with her heartbeat.
She flexed her fingers once.
“From Royce Capital?”
“An affiliate.”
Vanessa stood.
Her chair rolled backward.
“You proposed to me while you were negotiating for forty million dollars from my family?”
“It didn’t begin that way.”
“When did it begin?”
Julian’s mouth tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
Vanessa stared at him.
Something passed across her face that Maya recognized because she had worn it herself: the moment a woman begins reviewing old tenderness as evidence.
Vanessa sat again.
“When?”
“Vanessa.”
“When did you first contact my father?”
Julian looked at Camille again.
Camille said, “Stop doing that.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Nine months ago.”
Vanessa’s engagement had been announced eight months ago.
She removed the diamond ring.
For several seconds she simply held it.
Then she placed it on the conference table.
The sound was surprisingly small.
Maya looked at the ring and remembered her own.
Her wedding band had cost three hundred and eighty dollars. Julian’s had cost slightly more because his fingers were larger. They had been married in a courthouse on a Tuesday because the hotel’s first construction loan had closed on Wednesday and they did not want to spend money on a ceremony.
Afterward, they ate hamburgers in Maya’s car.
Julian had spilled mustard on his shirt and said, “Good. Now it looks official.”
She had laughed so hard she nearly choked.
The memory hurt in a dull way, like an old fracture in cold weather.
Vanessa spoke without looking up.
“Was tonight part of the deal?”
“No.”
“My father was coming.”
“He’s invited to the foundation gala every year.”
“He came because I told him we were exchanging vows.”
Julian’s shoulders dropped slightly.
Maya noticed.
“So you knew,” Vanessa said.
“I knew you told him.”
“And you thought what? He’d watch us do fake vows and suddenly decide you were family?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Vanessa looked at Maya.
There was something almost apologetic in her expression now, though not enough to become an apology.
Maya disliked feeling sympathy for her.
It complicated the clean anger she had carried into the ballroom.
Howard’s radio murmured at his hip.
He touched the earpiece.
“Yes?”
A pause.
His eyes went to Maya.
“Understood.”
He lowered his hand.
“Mr. Royce is downstairs asking for his daughter.”
Vanessa looked toward the door.
“My father saw the video.”
Nobody needed to ask how she knew.
Howard added, “He also brought counsel.”
Camille muttered, “Good. A family reunion with billable hours.”
This time Maya did laugh.
It was brief and badly timed.
Vanessa looked at her.
For one dangerous second, Maya expected anger.
Instead Vanessa gave a tiny, exhausted smile.
Then it disappeared.
“I don’t want him up here.”
Howard nodded.
“I can tell him.”
“No. He’ll come anyway.”
She picked up her engagement ring, stared at it, then set it down again.
“I need five minutes.”
Julian leaned toward her.
“Vanessa, I am sorry.”
She recoiled before he touched her.
“Don’t.”
He froze.
Maya watched him absorb it.
He looked older than he had an hour earlier. Not dramatically. Just around the mouth.
He turned to Maya.
“I never meant for any of this to happen.”
She held his gaze.
“No one ever means for consequences to happen.”
“Maya.”
“You made a series of decisions. This is what they look like when they arrive in the same room.”
Camille glanced at her.
Maya knew the sentence had been too neat.
Too cruel, maybe.
Julian knew it too.
“You don’t get to stand there like you’re outside this,” he said.
Maya’s back stiffened.
“I’m not.”
“You refused to file.”
“So did you.”
“You wouldn’t sell your shares.”
“That has nothing to do with our marriage.”
“It has everything to do with it.”
Vanessa looked between them.
Julian continued before Maya could stop him.
“You kept one foot in the company, one foot in my life, and every time I tried to talk about what came next, you turned it into governance.”
Maya felt heat climb her neck.
“That is not what happened.”
“You moved out.”
“Because you slept in your office more than our home.”
“I was running the company.”
“So was I.”
“You stopped being my wife before I stopped being your husband.”
The room went silent again.
Maya looked down at the table.
That one had found its mark.
There were lies Julian told because they were useful.
There were also truths he used like knives.
Vanessa watched Maya now with an expression Maya did not want from her.
Understanding.
Maya said, “We are not doing our marriage in front of Vanessa.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“You already did it in front of the ballroom.”
She stood.
The chair legs dragged over carpet.
“That was your work.”
“I didn’t throw the tray.”
“No. You just supplied the room.”
Howard looked at the door as though considering whether security work at an airport might be calmer.
Camille reopened the laptop.
“Enough. Personal blame can wait. We have immediate decisions.”
She looked at Maya.
“The board needs to be notified about the term sheet.”
“Yes.”
Julian said, “That is unnecessary tonight.”
Camille ignored him.
“Maya, as forty-percent owner and board vice chair, you can request an emergency session. I recommend tomorrow morning.”
“Eight.”
Julian said, “I have investor meetings.”
Maya looked at him.
“Not anymore.”
His face hardened.
May you like
There he was.
The Julian who could negotiate a contractor down nine percent without raising his voice. The Julian who had once turned an empty warehouse and a collection of impossible renderings into the first Halcyon. The man Maya had loved partly because he did not scare easily.
