Chương 4
“From my mother’s estate.”
“It was sitting there.”
Sienna turned around.
Ethan ignored her.
“The company needed bridge security. I had relationships. I could move quickly.”
“You pledged estate property.”
“I protected your company.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You were barely functioning.”
The sentence found its target because it was partly true.
Victoria looked away.
For months after Eleanor died, she had slept in two-hour pieces. She forgot meals. She left messages unanswered. Once, she stood in a grocery store holding a carton of milk and could not remember whether her mother was dead or merely not answering the phone.
Ethan had taken over.
He had answered emails.
He had postponed meetings.
He had signed things she placed in front of him after he explained them.
He had sat on the bathroom floor outside the shower when she cried hard enough to become sick.
That was the part her anger could not immediately erase.
He had cared for her.
Or he had performed care while learning where she was weakest.
Victoria hated herself for not knowing which.
“What does the brooch have to do with liquidity?”
Ethan looked toward Sienna.
“Nothing.”
Sienna’s face hardened.
Victoria understood.
“You took it because you could.”
“It was already out.”
“Out of where?”
He said nothing.
“Ethan.”
“The mausoleum had to be opened.”
Victoria stopped breathing for a second.
“For what?”
“There was water intrusion after the winter freeze.”
She stared at him.
The Mercer mausoleum was old granite set into a hillside outside Greenwich. In February, the cemetery superintendent had sent Victoria a short notice about drainage inspection near several family structures after a hard freeze.
Ethan had handled it.
She could see the email in her mind.
I’ll take care of this. You don’t need another thing.
She had replied with a heart.
Victoria pressed her fingertips against her lips.
“You were there?”
“No.”
“Who was?”
“A maintenance contractor.”
“Did you tell them to open my mother’s crypt?”
“They needed access.”
“To the inside?”
“It was already being inspected.”
“You said water intrusion.”
“There was concern about seal integrity.”
“And you removed jewelry from her body.”
“No.”
The denial came too fast.
Sienna crossed the deck.
“You told me you found it in a storage box.”
Ethan stood.
“I told you it came out of storage.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
He faced her.
“You really want to do this?”
Sienna looked almost amused.
“You brought me onto your wife’s yacht in jewelry you stole from her mother’s body.”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
His expression went flat.
Victoria had seen that face only a few times.
Once when a junior banker embarrassed him in front of a client.
Once when her mother changed the terms of a trust without consulting him.
Once when Victoria told him she wanted to postpone trying for a child.
His anger did not grow loud.
It became orderly.
He turned to Victoria.
“There was no body contact.”
“What does that mean?”
“The funeral home secured certain pieces separately.”
Victoria stared at him.
“No.”
“You don’t know.”
“I put it on her.”
“You were medicated.”
The deck seemed to tilt.
Victoria stood so quickly that the edge of the bench struck the back of her knees.
“What did you say?”
Ethan’s face changed.
“Victoria—”
“I was medicated?”
“I mean you were prescribed something for anxiety.”
“I took half a tablet the night before the funeral.”
“You were exhausted.”
“So my memory doesn’t count?”
“That is not what I said.”
“It’s what you needed to say.”
She walked away from him.
Her hands shook.
She hated that they shook.
At the railing, she gripped the cool metal until the tremor became less visible.
The ocean below was black except where the yacht’s lights broke across it.
Her mother had hated boats.
That thought came from nowhere.
Eleanor had owned three of them through the company and complained about every one. She disliked the smell of marine fuel and refused to sleep aboard because the tiny sounds in the walls annoyed her. Once, when Victoria was sixteen, Eleanor had spent an entire family cruise reorganizing a galley drawer because the knives rattled.
Victoria almost smiled.
The memory hurt more than the brooch.
Behind her, Ethan said nothing.
Sienna came close enough to be heard but did not touch her.
“I didn’t know.”
Victoria looked at the water.
“I don’t care.”
“I know.”
That answer irritated her.
Victoria turned.
Sienna met her eyes.
“You should care,” Victoria said. “You should care that you slept with my husband.”
Sienna’s jaw tightened.
“I didn’t say you shouldn’t.”
“You knew he was married.”
“Yes.”
“You met me.”
“Yes.”
“You stood in front of me and talked about women surviving family businesses.”
Sienna looked down.
“That was ugly.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
Victoria wanted to hate the answer.
Instead, she found herself exhausted by how inadequate hatred was.
“Why?”
Sienna gave a small shrug.
“Because he told me you were separated in everything but paperwork.”
Ethan made a sound behind them.
Sienna turned.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
She looked back at Victoria.
“I knew that was probably not fully true.”
“Probably?”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I’m explaining my own stupidity.”
“That’s generous.”
Sienna accepted the insult without reacting.
“He said you lived separate lives. He said your marriage had become financial. He said after your mother died, you stopped wanting him near you.”
Victoria looked at Ethan.
He did not deny it.
That was another wound, smaller than the brooch and somehow more intimate.
There had been months when she could not bear being touched.
Ethan had told her there was no hurry.
He had kissed her forehead.
He had made soup.
Apparently, he had also explained her grief to another woman.
Victoria returned to the bench and picked up her coat.
She did not put it on.
May you like
She folded it once over her arm.
At 11:41 p.m., the marina lights became visible.
