Chương 9
Security called her.
She almost refused him.
Then she said yes.
He entered the house six minutes later wearing a navy coat over a plain shirt, no velvet, no performance.
He looked tired.
So did she.
They stood in the drawing room where they had held their wedding rehearsal dinner.
Neither sat.
“You found the account,” he said.
Victoria stared.
“That’s why you came?”
“Yes.”
“Not to ask if I found it.”
“No.”
The directness startled her.
“Why?”
He looked around the room.
“Because every lawyer I’ve spoken to says the same thing.”
“What?”
“That I should stop trying to manage this.”
Victoria almost smiled.
“That must be difficult.”
“It is.”
He sat.
After a moment, she sat across from him.
The space between them was occupied by a low table holding three old art books and a bowl of decorative brass objects her mother had bought because she liked their weight.
Ethan rubbed his hands together.
“I took money.”
Victoria felt nothing.
The sentence was too expected.
“How much?”
“Personally? Three hundred thousand from that fee.”
“And the rest?”
“Paid legitimate expenses.”
“Through a company registered to your mistress.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t let the board see how desperate the refinancing had become.”
“So you hid it.”
“Yes.”
“Why take the fee?”
He looked at her.
There was shame now.
Real shame.
That annoyed her.
He did not deserve to become more sympathetic just because he had finally run out of strategies.
“I thought I was owed something.”
Victoria sat back.
“For saving us?”
“For everything.”
“What is everything?”
“Years of being treated like I married into somebody else’s museum.”
She almost interrupted.
He lifted a hand.
“No. Let me say it badly.”
She waited.
“I married you. I loved you. I probably still love you in whatever ruined version of that word I’m entitled to use. But your mother never believed I belonged. Every dinner, every board meeting, every trust document—there was always a line around the family and I was always outside it.”
“My mother was difficult.”
“She humiliated me.”
“She humiliated everybody.”
“That doesn’t make it fine.”
“No.”
He looked surprised that she agreed.
Victoria continued.
“But she didn’t make you steal from her.”
“No.”
“She didn’t make you sleep with Sienna.”
“No.”
“She didn’t make you use my grief as a signature machine.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“No.”
The word settled.
Victoria leaned forward.
“Why the brooch?”
He stared at the floor.
She waited.
Finally he said, “I hated it.”
Victoria frowned.
“That’s your explanation?”
“She wore it the night she told me she was changing the trust.”
The room seemed to contract around them.
“When?”
“Two months before she got sick enough to stop coming into the office.”
“What change?”
“She removed the spouse access provision.”
Victoria stared.
There had once been a clause in one of the family trusts allowing a surviving spouse of a direct descendant limited advisory authority over certain operating assets.
Eleanor had eliminated it in her final amendments.
Victoria knew that.
She had not known why.
“Because of you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“She said she had concerns.”
“What concerns?”
“That I was too interested in control.”
Victoria let out a short breath.
Ethan laughed without humor.
“There’s the irony.”
“Did she know about the money?”
“No. It hadn’t happened yet.”
“Sienna?”
“No.”
“Then what did she know?”
He looked at her.
“She knew me.”
Victoria’s throat tightened.
He continued before she could speak.
“That’s what I hated. Not because she was always right. She wasn’t. She was arrogant and controlling and cruel when she thought cruelty was efficient. But she saw what I wanted before you did.”
“And what did you want?”
“To matter without needing permission.”
Victoria looked at him for a long time.
“You could have built something.”
“I did.”
“With my company.”
“Yes.”
“With my name.”
“Yes.”
“With my mother’s assets.”
“Yes.”
The admissions no longer sounded cleansing.
They sounded small.
She asked again.
“Why the brooch?”
Ethan rubbed his face.
“When the mausoleum opened, the contractor called because the interior case had moisture. They needed guidance about temporary removal of personal effects.”
Victoria’s fingers curled against her knees.
“I told them to secure them. That part is true. A funeral services representative removed the brooch and two pins. They were supposed to go into estate storage.”
“Supposed to?”
“I took custody.”
“Why?”
“At first? Because I could.”
Victoria looked away.
He went on.
“I put the other pieces into storage.”
“And kept the brooch.”
“Yes.”
“To punish my mother.”
“Yes.”
“She was dead.”
“I know.”
“You gave it to Sienna.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He took a long breath.
“Because it felt like crossing a line your mother had drawn.”
Victoria stared at him.
He looked sick.
“That sounds pathetic when I say it.”
“It sounded pathetic before you said it.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you did.”
He nodded.
Perhaps that was the first thing he had learned.
Victoria stood and walked to the window.
Rain blurred the garden.
Her mother had spent years pruning the hedges herself because she distrusted landscapers with symmetry.
Victoria rested one hand against the glass.
“Did you love Sienna?”
Ethan was silent.
She turned.
“I’m asking because I want to know.”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
He looked down.
“I loved who I was with her.”
Victoria absorbed that.
It hurt.
But not in the way she expected.
“What were you?”
“Unjudged.”
“She knew you were married.”
“Yes.”
“She helped create Alder.”
“Yes.”
“She took two hundred forty thousand dollars.”
“Yes.”
“That’s your version of unjudged?”
He looked at her.
“I didn’t say it was healthy.”
Victoria almost smiled.
There was the man she had married, appearing briefly through the wreckage: intelligent enough to know exactly how foolish he sounded and vain enough to keep speaking anyway.
“Did you ever plan to tell me?”
“About the affair?”
“Any of it.”
“No.”
The honesty was brutal.
Victoria nodded.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
May you like
“Finally making one thing simple.”
Ethan stood.
