Chương 12
Ben followed her gaze.
“Bad repair.”
“It held.”
“That’s why it was bad.”
She looked at him.
He shrugged.
“Too strong for what it was attached to.”
Evelyn laughed softly.
“Don’t become symbolic on me.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She went back to work.
The special committee’s next findings were worse.
The disputed consent was not the only irregularity.
Two vendor payments had been accelerated without proper approval.
An acquisition deposit had been temporarily covered using funds intended for another project, then replaced eleven days later.
No money appeared to have been stolen.
That did not make the movement proper.
Damien had been keeping multiple deals alive by shifting pressure between them.
Each decision made the next one necessary.
A company could drown without anyone carrying cash out the door.
Adrian received the preliminary report before Evelyn did because of his separate board role.
This time he called her and asked, “Have you read it?”
“No.”
“I’ll wait.”
That was new.
Twenty minutes later, she called back.
“He was juggling.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe eighteen months.”
“Did the CFO know?”
“Some of it.”
“Why didn’t anyone stop him?”
“Because most quarters it worked.”
Evelyn sat on the floor beside her sofa.
“That’s the worst answer.”
“I know.”
The board had praised Damien for keeping projects moving through a difficult lending environment.
Investors had applauded returns.
Adrian had defended him.
People saw the risk only after the system stopped rewarding it.
“Will the company survive?” Evelyn asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
“Dad.”
“I’m trying to stop saying things I cannot know.”
She closed her eyes.
“Annoying.”
“I learned from you.”
The board scheduled another emergency meeting.
This one would decide whether Damien returned, resigned, or was removed.
The special committee had not finished its investigation.
Some directors wanted to wait.
Others believed waiting itself had become a decision.
The lender would not restart refinancing while Damien remained chief executive.
Removing him could trigger clauses in other agreements.
Keeping him could cost the company access to capital.
There was no clean option.
The night before the meeting, Sloane came to Evelyn’s apartment.
Evelyn nearly refused to let her in.
Then she saw Sloane holding a cardboard bakery box.
“What is that?”
“Bribery.”
“With what?”
“Cannoli.”
“I don’t like cannoli.”
Sloane stared at her.
“Of course you don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“You seem like someone who distrusts sweet filling.”
Evelyn stepped aside.
“Come in.”
Sloane walked into the living room and looked around.
“You live here?”
“No, I broke in and decorated.”
“I thought you had a townhouse.”
“My father has a townhouse.”
“I know.”
“That sentence was disturbing.”
Sloane set the box down.
“I went there once for a fundraiser.”
“Ah.”
They stood awkwardly.
Then Sloane said, “Damien asked me to marry him.”
Evelyn blinked.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
That explained the ring Sloane had not worn at the penthouse.
Evelyn had noticed a faint pale line around her finger afterward and assumed she had removed jewelry for the police.
“Did you say yes?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the ring?”
“I gave it back yesterday.”
Evelyn sat.
Sloane remained standing.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t apologize to me for ending your engagement.”
“I mean for telling you.”
“Oh.”
Sloane sat across from her.
“I thought it would feel like winning.”
“What?”
“When he chose me.”
Evelyn looked at her.
Sloane’s face tightened with embarrassment.
“I told you I didn’t like you.”
“You did.”
“I thought you’d made him insecure because you always had more power.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him.”
“Enough.”
Evelyn looked toward the bakery box.
“You really brought cannoli.”
“I panicked.”
“My father recently lied to a waiter about fish for the same reason.”
Sloane smiled.
Then she rubbed her bare ring finger.
“He told me you humiliated him.”
“I did sometimes.”
Sloane looked up.
Evelyn continued.
“I corrected him in front of people. I used my father’s opinion when I knew Damien hated needing it. Once, during a fight, I told him the only reason the board trusted him was because my father made them.”
Sloane winced.
“Yes.”
“He told you?”
“Many times.”
“It was cruel.”
“Was it true?”
“Partly.”
“That’s worse.”
“I know.”
For a while neither spoke.
Sloane opened the cannoli box.
She ate one.
Evelyn declined.
“You really hate them?”
“I hate the shell.”
“That’s the best part.”
“This may be why we never became friends.”
Sloane wiped powdered sugar from her thumb.
Then she said, “He didn’t start out like this.”
Evelyn knew what she meant.
That sentence was dangerous because it could become an excuse.
It was also true.
“No,” Evelyn said.
Damien had once been generous.
Not performatively.
Quietly.
He remembered which doormen worked Christmas and left envelopes without mentioning it. He called his father’s sister every Sunday. He drove three hours to pick Evelyn up after her train broke down because she was too proud to call Adrian’s driver.
He could be funny without being cruel.
He could listen.
He could make a room feel less intimidating simply by deciding Evelyn belonged in it.
People liked simple monsters because they made memory easier.
Damien was not simple.
That did not make the bruise on Evelyn’s neck less real.
Sloane looked at her.
“Do you still love him?”
Evelyn almost laughed.
Then she discovered she could not.
“I don’t know what that word means after enough time.”
Sloane nodded.
“I think I do.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Sloane gave a wet, unexpected laugh.
Then she covered her face.
Not sobbing.
Just embarrassed by the sound.
Evelyn handed her a tissue.
Sloane looked at it.
“This is absurd.”
“Yes.”
“I watched him hurt you.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m sitting here crying because I gave back a ring.”
“Yes.”
“You could be nicer.”
“I could.”
Sloane laughed again.
This time Evelyn did too.
Then Sloane said, “He called me today.”
Evelyn stopped.
“What did he want?”
“For me to change my statement.”
“To police?”
“To the company.”
May you like
“What part?”
“He wants me to say the staff left because I dismissed them.”
