Part 4
“Did you write that for her?”
“No.”
“Then she has improved.”
“Victoria.”
“What?”
“Do not make jokes tonight.”
“It was not a joke.”
Richard was silent for a moment. “Adrian is willing to keep this within the family if Elena returns and everyone agrees to speak tomorrow with Dr. Rosen.”
Elena looked up at the name.
Victoria saw it.
“Who is Dr. Rosen?”
“The family psychiatrist.”
“We do not have a family psychiatrist.”
“Adrian says Elena has consulted him before.”
“I spoke to him once,” Elena said. “At Adrian’s request.”
Victoria repeated it into the phone.
Richard’s tone changed slightly. “Elena is with you?”
“Yes.”
“May I speak to her?”
“No,” Elena said.
Victoria did not soften it. “She says no.”
“I heard her.”
“Then why are you still asking?”
“Because the board will need to know whether she is safe.”
Elena stood.
She crossed the room, took Victoria’s phone, and held it to her ear.
“I am safe,” she said. “I am not returning tonight. Do not send anyone here. Do not call the hotel. Do not call my mother. Do not describe this as a psychiatric episode.”
Richard did not answer immediately.
Elena’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I heard you.”
She ended the call.
For a few seconds, she kept holding the phone.
Then she gave it back.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For taking it.”
Victoria placed the phone face down on the desk. “You asked with your eyes.”
“I didn’t.”
“No. You did not.”
Elena sat again. Her body seemed to fold around the apology she had not needed to make.
Victoria wanted to say many things. That none of this was Elena’s fault. That Adrian would be removed from the company. That Celeste would never come near her again. That passports could be replaced and accounts restored and locks changed. Each promise arrived wearing the shape of control.
Instead, she asked, “Would you like a doctor?”
Elena looked at her wrist.
“I don’t want a hospital.”
“A doctor can come here.”
“Someone who works for the family?”
“No.”
“How many doctors do you know who don’t?”
Victoria had no immediate answer.
Elena picked at a loose thread on the shawl. “I don’t think it’s broken.”
“That is not the only reason to be examined.”
“I know.”
The heater clicked off. In the sudden quiet, the ocean could be heard beyond the parking lot, not as waves but as a low, steady pressure.
“I’m going to shower,” Elena said.
Victoria stood. “I will be next door.”
“Can you stay here until I’m done?”
The request was so quiet Victoria nearly missed it.
“Of course.”
Elena carried the pharmacy bag into the bathroom and closed the door. A moment later, the shower began.
Victoria remained in the chair by the window. She did not check her messages. She stared at the dark reflection of the room in the glass and saw, over her own shoulder, the empty bed where Elena would have to decide whether sleep was possible.
Her hand drifted toward the brooch at her waist.
She stopped it halfway.
At twenty-eight, Adrian had once broken a bathroom door because a woman would not let him inside. Not Elena. A woman named June Mercer, who had worked in communications for the company and dated him quietly for six months. June had not called the police. She had called Human Resources, then Victoria.
Victoria had listened. She had believed most of it. She had also believed Adrian when he said June had locked herself in the bathroom during an argument and threatened to destroy his career. The broken door had become mutual volatility. The bruised shoulder had become an accident. The company had paid June a settlement large enough to start over somewhere else, and the agreement had included confidentiality on both sides.
Victoria had told herself she was protecting a young woman from public humiliation.
She had also protected Adrian.
The shower stopped.
Victoria lowered her hand.
Elena emerged wearing the hotel robe, her damp hair combed back with her fingers. Without makeup, she looked younger than twenty-six. The red band around her wrist had darkened at the edges.
“We should have someone look at that,” Victoria said.
Elena sat on the bed.
“Did you know?”
Victoria felt the question before she understood it.
“Know what?”
“That he reads my messages.”
“No.”
“That he changed my bank password.”
“No.”
“That Celeste checks what I take from the kitchen.”
Victoria stared at her.
“She says it’s because I forget to eat, so she keeps track. But if I order something Adrian doesn’t like, she tells him.”
“No. I did not know.”
“Did you know he canceled my teaching interview?”
“No.”
Elena nodded.
The answer had not relieved her.
“Did you know he could be like this?”
Victoria’s mouth went dry.
Outside, tires moved slowly across wet pavement. Headlights slid through the curtains and vanished.
“Yes,” she said.
Elena did not blink.
Victoria forced herself not to look away.
“I knew he could be controlling. I knew he could become cruel when he believed someone was leaving him. Years ago, there was an incident with a woman he was seeing.”
“What kind of incident?”
“He broke a door. She said he grabbed her. He denied grabbing her.”
“What did you do?”
“We reached a settlement.”
“We?”
“The company.”
Elena’s gaze dropped to Victoria’s diamond earrings, then to the black dress she had worn to a board dinner that no longer mattered.
“You paid her.”
“Yes.”
“To stay quiet.”
“The agreement was mutual.”
“That means yes.”
Victoria’s first impulse was to explain the lawyers, the lack of witnesses, June’s request for privacy, Adrian’s age, the board’s fear, the way old men had watched Victoria during her first year as chair and waited for any proof that a woman could not manage her own family. All of it was true. None of it changed the answer.
May you like
“Yes,” she said.
Elena looked toward the bathroom.
