Chương 5
“Is it signed?”
“We have verbal confirmation.”
“Is it signed?”
“Legal is reviewing.”
“Do you have a purchase order?”
“Maya, enterprise procurement takes time.”
“So no.”
His nostrils flared.
“It is happening.”
“That is not the same as happened.”
“You take risks in your business.”
“I do not risk payroll on verbal confirmation.”
“This is why founders create value and administrators preserve it.”
The words came out before he could soften them.
I looked at him.
My company had begun at my kitchen table after the accounting firm where I worked eliminated my position during a merger. I had spent two years answering client calls from a folding chair, eating dinner over spreadsheets, and pretending not to be afraid each time I hired someone.
Julian had introduced me at parties as “the practical one.”
Until that moment, I had accepted it as a compliment.
He saw my face and began correcting himself.
“That came out wrong.”
“It came out honestly.”
“I’m under pressure.”
“So am I.”
“I could lose everything.”
“You are asking me to lose it for you.”
“No. I’m asking you to protect our future.”
“The baby’s future is in my account.”
“The baby needs a father whose life has not been destroyed.”
Something in me recoiled.
He heard it too, because he sat back on his heels.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
“No. I meant stability.”
“You mean leverage.”
Eleanor moved to the drinks cart again. She did not pour anything this time. She adjusted the line of glasses.
“Pregnancy has made this conversation more difficult than necessary,” she said.
I looked at her reflection in the mirror above the cart.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are frightened.”
“I am frightened.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly, as though fear were agreement.
“Then let us help you.”
“You locked me in a room.”
“Julian prevented you from leaving before we could explain.”
“That is called locking me in a room.”
“This language is needlessly hostile.”
“Open the door.”
She turned.
“You will regret destroying your child’s family over a temporary transfer.”
“There is no family in this room.”
Julian stood so fast his knee struck the coffee table.
The glass chimed beneath the invoices.
“Stop saying things you can’t take back.”
I rose more slowly.
“You tried to access my company’s money. You hid one point four million dollars in personal guarantees. You planned to use fake wedding expenses to move my money into your business. And now you are physically stopping me from leaving.”
“Fake expenses is not accurate.”
“Open the door.”
“You’re not listening.”
“Open it.”
“We need a solution.”
“I gave you one. Move.”
His voice rose.
“You cannot walk out and leave me to be dismantled over a timing issue.”
“I can walk out of any room I choose.”
“Not while you’re carrying my child and making decisions that affect all three of us.”
My hand went to my stomach again.
Not because I needed to protect it from him yet.
Because of the word my.
He had said it like ownership.
Eleanor saw the movement.
Her eyes dropped to my belly and stayed there.
“You should be grateful Julian is willing to formalize this,” she said.
The statement was so strange I almost missed its meaning.
“Formalize what?”
She gave a small, impatient gesture.
“The family. The circumstances are not ideal.”
“What circumstances?”
“Do not force me to be indelicate.”
“I think we passed delicate when your son locked the door.”
Her face sharpened.
“You are unmarried and pregnant. Julian is prepared to stand beside you publicly, to give the child his name, to provide a stable social structure. Many men would not take on that obligation so readily.”
For a second I heard only the fan.
The slow turn of its blades.
The faint buzz from the kitchen refrigerator.
A gull crying over the terrace.
Julian said, “Mom.”
Not stop.
Not that isn’t true.
Just Mom, in the exhausted tone of a man who thought she had chosen an inconvenient moment.
I looked at him.
He looked away first.
“My baby is your obligation?” I asked.
“That is not what she meant.”
“She said it clearly.”
“She’s from another generation.”
“I’m sixty-two,” Eleanor said. “Not deceased.”
Under any other circumstances, the remark might have been funny. A small part of me noticed that, and the noticing made me feel unsteady.
Julian rubbed both hands over his face.
“Can everyone stop making this worse?”
“You locked the door,” I said.
“I’m trying to keep you from doing something impulsive.”
“I’m trying to leave.”
“You’re threatening our marriage.”
“There is no marriage.”
His hands dropped.
He stared at me.
Eleanor’s gaze became flat.
I had not intended to say it yet. Maybe I had not fully intended it at all. I only knew that the thought of standing beside Julian in eleven days, surrounded by orchids purchased with money siphoned through fabricated invoices, made my body reject the future before my mind could organize it.
He spoke quietly.
“Don’t.”
“Move away from the door.”
“You are not ending this because of an argument.”
“I’m ending it because I finally understand the argument.”
“You’re panicking.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“No, Julian. I have been panicking for months. I just kept calling it support.”
His face tightened as if I had struck him.
Eleanor stepped toward us.
“The wedding cannot be canceled.”
I turned to her.
“Watch me.”
“Guests are already traveling.”
“They can turn around.”
“Announcements have been made. Arrangements are public.”
“Then publicly announce that it is canceled.”
“You have no idea what this would do to Julian.”
“He should have thought about that before trying to steal from me.”
Julian’s control broke.
“I did not steal anything!”
The shout bounced off the high ceiling.
A door opened somewhere down the hall and closed again.
May you like
He lowered his voice, but the anger remained in his face.
“I have spent two years building something that could provide for us for the rest of our lives. I have introduced you to people you never would have met. I have elevated your company’s visibility. I have brought opportunities to your doorstep, and every time I ask you to act like we are a team, you reduce it to a transaction.”
