Chương 6
“What opportunities?”
“Connections.”
“Name one client your connections brought me.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“It is exactly the point.”
“You wouldn’t even be hosting your executive retreat here next spring without my mother.”
“I never agreed to host it here.”
He stared.
Eleanor looked at him.
Another thread pulled loose.
“What executive retreat?” I asked.
Julian’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Eleanor answered.
“Your company retreat. Julian mentioned you were considering the villa.”
“I was not.”
“It would be an excellent way to introduce your clients to the family.”
“You planned to bring my clients here?”
“No one planned anything,” Julian said.
“Did you tell her my company would pay to rent this villa?”
“It was a possibility.”
“How much?”
“Why does every conversation with you become a ledger?”
“Because every conversation with you becomes an invoice.”
His phone rang.
Not vibrated. Rang.
The sound startled all of us.
He pulled it from his pocket. The caller ID displayed a number without a name.
He declined the call.
It rang again.
Eleanor said, “Answer it.”
Julian looked at me.
“Answer it,” I said.
He rejected the call a second time.
A voicemail notification appeared almost immediately.
Five o’clock was less than two hours away.
“I need the card,” Eleanor said.
I turned toward her.
She held out one hand.
Not asking.
Waiting.
“The card,” she repeated. “You can authorize a temporary withdrawal, and this ugliness ends.”
“My account has transfer limits.”
“Your debit card has a cash-access function.”
“How do you know?”
“Julian checked.”
The answer came before he could stop her.
My fingers tightened around the bag until the leather creased.
They had discussed this.
Not in vague terms. Not as a desperate idea invented during an argument. They knew the type of account. They knew the card could access it. They knew there were limits.
They had planned how to get around my refusal.
“You’re not getting my card.”
Eleanor’s expression barely changed.
“You are carrying this family’s grandchild.”
“I am carrying my child.”
“Do not be childish.”
“Open the door.”
“Give me the card.”
“No.”
“And the PIN.”
The air seemed to thin.
Julian said nothing.
I looked at him, waiting for the moment when even he would recognize how far his mother had gone.
He stared at the floor.
I felt something inside me settle.
Not courage. Courage sounded noble.
This was colder.
It was the end of negotiation.
“You knew she was going to ask me for it,” I said.
He lifted his eyes.
“We need access today.”
“To how much?”
“The card is only the first step.”
“What is the second?”
“We move the amount in stages.”
“You expect me to hand over my bank card and let you drain my account in stages?”
“No one said drain.”
“Then tell me the amount.”
“Two hundred fifty thousand.”
“For today.”
He did not answer.
“For today,” I repeated. “What comes after today?”
“If the contract is delayed, we may need additional runway.”
“How much?”
“It depends.”
“One point four million?”
“No.”
“Enough to cover your guarantee?”
“No.”
Eleanor’s hand remained extended.
“Stop dramatizing,” she said. “Give me the card.”
I took one step back.
She followed.
“I said no.”
“You are confused.”
“I am leaving.”
“Julian.”
He shifted toward the door, widening his stance.
Eleanor approached until only the glass table separated us.
Her perfume reached me first—rose, powder, and something medicinal beneath it.
“The child changes the situation,” she said.
“It does.”
“Then behave like a mother.”
“I am.”
“A mother preserves stability.”
“A mother does not hand her child’s security to two people who lied to her.”
Her nostrils tightened.
“You have always been eager to remind us that you earned your money.”
“I did.”
“As if earning it makes you uniquely entitled to decide what is best for everyone.”
“That is almost exactly what earning it means.”
“You married into—”
“I haven’t married into anything.”
“You accepted our name, our hospitality, our introductions—”
“I accepted a proposal from your son.”
“And you enjoyed what came with it.”
“What came with it was eighty thousand dollars in bills.”
Julian stepped forward.
“Enough.”
The word was directed at me.
Not her.
I looked from him to Eleanor and back.
The baby’s future father stood between me and the locked door, angry that I had made his mother uncomfortable while she demanded access to my bank account.
I wondered how many times I had edited reality to keep loving him.
The night he borrowed my car and returned it with a dent, saying the hotel valet must have done it.
The dinner where he told an investor I had promised to handle his company’s payroll for free.
The morning he cried in my kitchen after losing a client, then asked me to cover his office rent before the tears had dried.
The stories had always arrived wrapped in vulnerability. He was unlucky. Misunderstood. Betrayed by slower people. Nearly successful.
I had wanted to be the one person who did not abandon him before the breakthrough.
My mother had once asked, gently, whether Julian loved me or loved being rescued by me.
I did not speak to her for three days.
Now my parents were ten minutes away, believing they were coming for lunch.
I had sent them a message that morning after Julian refused to show me the final vendor contracts.
Come to Eleanor’s at four. Something feels wrong.
At the time, I had been embarrassed by my own suspicion. I nearly deleted the message before sending it.
My father replied with a thumbs-up icon, then another message because he distrusted the first one.
We’ll be there, kiddo.
I glanced at the clock above the mantel.
Three forty-seven.
“I need to call my parents,” I said.
“No,” Eleanor replied.
The speed of it chilled me.
“They’re coming here.”
“They are not.”
“I invited them.”
“This is not an appropriate moment.”
“They’re my parents.”
May you like
“I instructed the gate staff not to admit unexpected visitors.”
I stared at her.
