Chương 8
“Why did you ask to meet?”
“Northline.”
“What about them?”
“They will strip the development rights, burden the hotel with preferred returns, and leave you responsible for a building that still needs ninety million dollars over ten years.”
Leila had said forty-six.
Sloane kept her face still.
“Where does ninety come from?”
“Real life.”
“Specific.”
“Your mother’s engineering studies underestimated mechanical replacement.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Our current capital plan is fifty-one.”
Vivian looked at him.
“Because you delayed facade work.”
“Under your direction.”
“Because we had no cash.”
“Exactly.”
The old rhythm between them appeared instantly. Neither needed to explain the previous sentence.
Sloane watched.
“Why didn’t you give Northline current financials?”
Vivian turned back to her.
“Because their proposal was not better than Halcyon.”
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“It became mine when Eleanor disappeared again.”
Sloane’s jaw tightened.
“She had cancer.”
“I know what she had.”
The room changed.
Vivian’s voice had gone quiet.
“You think I didn’t know?”
Sloane said nothing.
Vivian leaned back.
“Your mother came here in February and told me she had months. Maybe less.”
Marcus looked surprised.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“She asked me not to.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
Vivian met it.
“And unlike some promises, I kept that one.”
Sloane felt Rachel’s hand touch her wrist under the table, then withdraw.
“What else did she ask?”
Vivian looked at Sloane.
“She asked me to delay the Halcyon vote until you arrived.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you did not arrive.”
“She died in May.”
“And I contacted you in March.”
Sloane froze.
“No, you didn’t.”
Vivian’s eyes narrowed.
“I sent three letters.”
“To where?”
“The address Eleanor gave me.”
Sloane felt something cold move through her stomach.
“What address?”
Vivian named a shelter in Queens.
The room went still.
Sloane looked at Rachel.
Rachel shook her head.
Sloane had not lived there since she was seventeen.
Her mother had known that.
“Why would she give you that address?”
“I assumed you were there.”
“For ten years?”
Vivian’s face changed.
For the first time, the confidence fractured.
“I didn’t know.”
“You told me to crawl back there.”
Vivian’s hands tightened.
“I believed—”
“You believed my mother abandoned me there?”
“That was what she told me.”
Sloane stared at her.
Vivian seemed to hear herself too late.
Rachel spoke.
“What exactly did Eleanor tell you?”
Vivian did not answer.
“Mrs. Cross.”
“She said Sloane wanted nothing to do with the Mercer family. That she had built her own life. She said if Sloane could not be reached, I should make the best decision for the hotel.”
“That is not the same as abandoned at a shelter,” Sloane said.
“No.”
“Where did you get that?”
Vivian looked away.
Sloane understood.
“You made it uglier because you wanted to hurt me.”
Vivian remained silent.
Sloane felt suddenly tired.
Not angry.
Tired.
She had spent years wondering which version of herself powerful people would despise most: poor, angry, illegitimate, inconvenient. Vivian had collected three and chosen them all.
“Why did you hate her?” Sloane asked.
Vivian’s face tightened.
“I did not hate Eleanor.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“You tried to sell the thing she left me before I could get here.”
“I tried to save it before you could destroy it out of sentiment.”
“You had never met me.”
“I knew your mother.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
The words echoed what Sloane had said to Marcus.
Vivian heard it.
She looked toward the windows.
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
Rachel opened the Northline summary.
“You said Eleanor didn’t disclose everything.”
Vivian’s lawyer shifted.
Vivian ignored him.
“She had agreed in principle to resign the Mercer name from the hotel.”
Sloane blinked.
“What?”
“As part of the preservation structure.”
Marcus frowned.
“That wasn’t in the term sheet.”
“It was in her proposed amendment.”
“Why?”
Vivian looked at Sloane.
“Because Northline wanted governance separation. And Eleanor believed the hotel had spent too long protecting a family instead of a business.”
Sloane almost laughed.
Of course.
Her mother had been willing to save the Mercer Grand by making it less Mercer.
“What did you say?”
“I told her Benjamin Mercer would turn in his grave.”
“What did she say?”
Vivian’s mouth moved.
A reluctant memory.
“She said that would finally give him some exercise.”
Marcus looked down.
Sloane covered her mouth.
The laugh escaped anyway.
Vivian almost smiled.
Almost.
For one second, the forty years between them disappeared and Sloane could see the twenty-three-year-old woman in the photograph, laughing beside Eleanor after twelve broken glasses.
Then it was gone.
Vivian stood.
“I will provide every file I have.”
“Why now?”
“Because whether I like it or not, you are the owner.”
“That didn’t matter yesterday.”
“No.”
“Why does it today?”
Vivian looked at her.
“Because yesterday I thought you were a child coming to burn down a building to punish people who hurt your mother.”
“And now?”
“Now I think you might burn it down for your own reasons.”
Sloane stared.
Vivian picked up her bag.
“That was a joke.”
“It wasn’t good.”
“I haven’t had breakfast.”
“Apparently that affects your personality.”
“It affects everyone’s.”
At the door, Vivian stopped.
Sloane said, “One more thing.”
Vivian turned.
“You don’t come back into this hotel without an escort until the assault review is resolved.”
Vivian’s face hardened.
“I just gave you information.”
“And you pulled me to the floor.”
“I apologized.”
“No. You described what happened.”
Vivian’s eyes flashed.
“Would saying I’m sorry satisfy you?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
Sloane thought about the lobby.
The phones.
The cane sliding away.
The pleasure she had felt telling Vivian to crawl.
“I want you to understand that being useful doesn’t purchase permission.”
Vivian looked at her for a long time.
Then nodded once.
“Fair.”
She left.
Sloane sat down.
Rachel waited.
Marcus waited.
Sloane stared at the closed door.
“My mother gave her the shelter address.”
Rachel said, “Apparently.”
“Why?”
May you like
Nobody knew.
That question followed Sloane for two days.
