Chapter 2 - Say It Again
For a moment, all I could hear was the orchestra in the next room.
My father reached for the folder.
Dominic rested two fingers on it.
Charles stopped.
“It’s a company email,” my father said.
“Yes,” Dominic replied. “Written by someone you just described as household help.”
“I didn’t say help.”
“You said matters,” I told him.
Rebecca turned toward me.
“Claire. This isn’t the place.”
For years, that sentence had followed every insult.
Never the place.
Never the time.
Never a convenient moment for me to be hurt.
Dominic slid the page toward me.
“Did you write this?”
“Yes.”
“Can you explain the second option?”
“The client could release the undisputed amount while we corrected the record. But that would leave almost two hundred thousand tied up for another month.”
“And you chose the first.”
“The first got everyone paid.”
He closed the folder.
“My team has been reviewing Whitmore Freight for three weeks. Your father wants financing secured by company property.”
That explained the forty-thousand-dollar dinner.
The private room.
The flowers taller than my rent.
My father wasn’t celebrating a partnership.
He was begging for one with expensive silverware.
“I understood,” Dominic continued, “that Charles personally managed the operations keeping this business solvent.”
“He does,” Rebecca said.
I looked at her.
She stared back with the same expression she wore when Martha used the wrong serving bowl.
A problem to correct.
Nothing personal.
“I manage the day-to-day operations,” I said.
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
Steady.
My father leaned toward me.
“Be very careful.”
Dominic heard him.
“About the truth?”
“About discussing internal matters with people outside the business.”
“You invited me to buy into those internal matters.”
At the other end of the table, Emily lowered her eyes.
Lauren stared at her phone.
Madison looked angry that the evening had stopped being about her.
Dominic stood.
“The financing discussion is paused.”
My father stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
“Over a misunderstanding?”
“Over inaccurate disclosures.”
He handed me a business card.
“My counsel may have questions. You’re free to bring your own attorney.”
Then he left.
My father waited until the door closed.
“What did you do?”
I looked at the empty place where Dominic had been.
“I answered a question.”
“You embarrassed this family.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You introduced it.”
His face changed.
Not red.
Not loud.
Cold.
My phone vibrated in my purse.
A company security notification.
PASSWORD RESET COMPLETE.
May you like
Then another.
YOUR ACCESS HAS BEEN REVOKED.
