Chapter 5: The Night Before
I carried Toby to the guest bedroom myself.
He was half asleep by the time I lifted him, his head dropping against my shoulder, one hand still loosely curled around nothing — the ghost of the bread he'd been holding.
Clara walked beside me.
She didn't speak until I had laid him down and pulled the blanket over him.
"Andrew." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"What did Marcus tell you?"
"Everything."
She closed her eyes.
"How much do they know?
About the house?"
"Nothing.
They still think it's mine to sign away."
She opened her eyes.
"And the company?"
"The board amendment was filed this afternoon.
It's done.
They can't touch Meridian."
Clara sat on the edge of the bed.
She looked at Toby's face — the way children sleep, completely unguarded, as if the world has never given them a reason not to.
"I should have called you," she said.
"The first week.
I should have called you the first day."
"Why didn't you?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Because you were closing the biggest contract of your career.
And because—" She stopped.
"Clara."
"Because your mother told me that if I caused any trouble while you were away, she would make sure you came home to find out that I had been the problem all along.
That I had been difficult.
Ungrateful.
That the pregnancy had made me unstable." Her voice was steady but her hands were not.
"She said you would believe her.
That you always believed her."
I sat down beside her.
"Did you believe that?" I asked.
She looked at me.
"I believed it enough to stay quiet.
And I hate that I did."
I took her hand — carefully, around the bruise.
"Tomorrow," I said, "I need you to trust me completely.
Whatever happens in that office, whatever my father says or my mother does — I need you to stay calm and let it play out."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to let them sign exactly what they came to sign."
She stared at me.
"Andrew—"
"Marcus prepared two documents.
They know about one of them." I met her eyes.
"They don't know about the other."
A sound from the hallway.
Footsteps — Natalie's, too deliberate to be accidental — passing close to the door and then moving away.
Clara's grip tightened on my hand.
"She's listening," Clara whispered.
May you like
"I know," I said, at normal volume.
"Let her."
