Chương 8
“He says he wants to discuss the baby,” Malcolm said.
“Lena told him all communication goes through counsel.”
“He says this is personal.”
“Everything is personal when he wants the rules removed.”
Through the front window, I could see Brendan under the streetlamp. He wore jeans and no coat. July evenings were warm, but a storm had cooled the air.
I should have left him there.
Instead, I told Malcolm he could come onto the porch while security remained present and the door stayed open.
Brendan climbed the steps slowly. For once, he did not enter a space as though it had been waiting for him.
He looked at my belly first.
“How is she?”
“Healthy.”
“You could have told me.”
“You could have asked through Lena.”
“I did. She sent me a release form.”
“The hospital cannot disclose records because you demand them.”
“I’m her father.”
“You are the probable father. We’ll establish paternity legally after birth.”
He flinched. “Probable?”
“The word bothers you?”
“Yes, Cassidy, it bothers me.”
“Good. Some words should.”
Malcolm stood at the end of the walkway, far enough not to hear ordinary voices. Brendan glanced toward him.
“You really need a guard?”
“I didn’t think I needed one at dinner.”
He rubbed his palms over his jeans. “I came to apologize.”
I waited.
He looked past me into the narrow hallway. “Can I come inside?”
“No.”
“Right.”
A moth struck the porch light and fell onto the railing. Brendan watched it recover.
“I laughed,” he said. “I don’t know why.”
“You thought it was funny.”
“No. It was—Mom does things, and if you don’t go with it, she turns on you.”
“You’re thirty-nine.”
“I know how old I am.”
“Then stop explaining yourself like a child trapped in the back seat.”
His face tightened. There he was—the man who believed humiliation counted only when directed at him.
“I said I came to apologize.”
“You haven’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He stared at me. “Do we have to do this like a deposition?”
“You asked for five minutes without lawyers.”
He looked down at the porch boards. “I’m sorry I laughed. I’m sorry I didn’t stop her. I’m sorry you were frightened.”
“Were you sorry before your email stopped working?”
He did not answer.
Across the street, a sprinkler clicked on and sent water over an already wet lawn.
Brendan lowered his voice. “Renner says your trust structure may not hold.”
“Then Renner should argue that in court.”
“I don’t want court.”
“You filed first.”
“To keep you from taking my daughter.”
“I have not taken anyone.”
“You took my job.”
“Your employer suspended you.”
“You are my employer.”
“That distinction never mattered to you until last week.”
He stepped closer. The security officer at the curb straightened.
Brendan stopped.
“Do you know what this has done to Dad?” he asked. “He built that company.”
“He helped build it.”
“He gave thirty years.”
“And Asterion paid him more than forty million dollars.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“It becomes the point when he uses the company as an inheritance account.”
“You think because your grandfather signed the right papers, you earned all of it?”
The question found the place he intended.
I had asked it of myself every year since I inherited.
“No,” I said.
Brendan seemed surprised.
“I didn’t earn the ownership. I inherited responsibility for it. I have not handled that responsibility as well as I told myself.”
His shoulders loosened, mistaking honesty for surrender.
“But you did not earn the right to steal from it,” I continued. “Your mother did not earn the right to assault me. And none of you earned my silence because I loved you.”
He looked toward the street. “Jessica left.”
I felt nothing at first. Then a small, ugly satisfaction.
“When?”
“Two days ago.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
He rubbed his mouth. “She says I lied about my equity.”
“Did you?”
“I told her the options would vest.”
“They were performance options.”
“They would have vested.”
“The division missed its targets.”
“Because finance moved costs into our books.”
“Did Jessica perform brand strategy work worth two hundred and eighty thousand dollars?”
His face changed.
The figure had not been public.
“That investigation is supposed to be independent.”
“It is. I can read board-level exposure summaries.”
“She did work.”
“What?”
“She attended events.”
“So did the flowers.”
“Don’t be cruel.”
The hypocrisy was so clean it almost made me admire him.
“I’m tired,” I said.
“Cass, wait.”
I held the edge of the door.
For one second, the porch became our old kitchen. Brendan leaning against the counter, promising he would speak to his mother. Me agreeing not to make an issue of whatever the issue had been. We had repeated that arrangement until our marriage became a place where only one person ever had to change.
“What?” I asked.
“Was any of it real?”
I looked at him.
He meant the marriage, but he also meant the house, the company, his career, and the version of himself reflected in my ignorance.
“I loved you,” I said. “That was real.”
His eyes filled so quickly he turned away.
I closed the door before sorrow could become another debt between us.
The next morning, the special committee found my signatures.
Thirty-one procurement approvals connected to the Morrison transactions carried my electronic authorization.
Naomi called me before the formal meeting.
“These were processed through the chair’s delegated-capital workflow,” she said. “Your office approved them.”
“My office was me and one analyst.”
“Your analyst says anything below five hundred thousand was routed through automated review if divisional finance certified it.”
“That was the policy.”
“The Morrissons appear to have split larger projects into smaller requests. Each request passed through your approval queue.”
“I reviewed summaries.”
“You clicked approve.”
May you like
The words were not accusatory. They did not need to be.
I opened the archived dashboard on my laptop. There they were: residence renovations labeled executive hospitality modernization, art purchases labeled stakeholder environment assets, consulting contracts labeled market access support.
