The headquarters of Vane Hotels was a glass needle piercing the Manhattan skyline. The lobby smelled of white tea and money.
Richard and Jessica stood at the reception desk. They looked out of place. Richard’s suit was wrinkled—he hadn’t figured out how to use the iron—and Jessica looked pale and frightened without the armor of her arrogance.
“We’re here to see Elena… Mrs. Miller,” Richard corrected himself, though the name felt like a lie now. “Or Ms. Vane.”
The receptionist, a young woman with a sharp bob, looked at them with pity. “Ms. Vane is in a board meeting. She left instructions that if you arrived, you were to be escorted to Conference Room B.”
They were led up forty floors. The elevator ride was silent and nauseating.
Conference Room B was larger than Richard’s entire house. One wall was floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking Central Park.
Elena sat at the head of a massive mahogany table.
She looked different. The messy bun and flour-stained apron were gone. Her hair was a sleek curtain of silk. She wore a cream-colored power suit that screamed competence. She was typing on a tablet, flanked by two lawyers in shark-grey suits.
She didn’t stand up when they entered. She didn’t smile.
“Sit,” Elena said, not looking up. She gestured to the two chairs at the far end of the table. “I assume you don’t need me to tell you which chairs are yours.”
The callback to the Christmas dinner stung. Richard flinched.
“Elena,” Richard started, using his ‘charming husband’ voice, though it cracked. “Baby, please. What is this? Why are you doing this? We’re family.”
Elena finally looked up. Her eyes were dry, clear, and terrifyingly cold.
“Family?” she repeated. “Family sits at the table, Richard. Family doesn’t get shoved into the sideboard. Family doesn’t get told they are ‘the help we sleep with’.”
“I didn’t say that!” Richard protested. “Tyler did! He’s an idiot! You know that!”
“And you laughed,” Elena said softly. “You laughed.”
She slid a thick folder across the long table. It stopped perfectly in front of Richard.
“Open it.”
Richard opened the folder. It was a financial autopsy of his life.
“When we met, your consulting firm was bankrupt,” Elena said, reciting the facts like a grocery list. “I injected two million dollars into it through a shell company so your ego wouldn’t bruise. I bought the mortgage on the house when the bank was about to foreclose three years ago. I paid for Jessica’s tuition at NYU. I paid for Tyler’s legal fees. I paid for the groceries, the heat, the water, and the wine you were drinking while you watched your daughter assault me.”
Jessica gasped, looking down at her hands. “You… you paid for NYU?”
“I did,” Elena said. “Because I wanted to be a mother to you. I wanted to build a life. I hid my name because I wanted to be loved for me, not for the Vane fortune. I wanted to see if you could love Elena the cook, Elena the nurse, Elena the wife.”
She leaned forward, her gaze piercing them.
“But you failed the test. Spectacularly.”
“Elena, we can fix this,” Richard pleaded, standing up. “I love you. I do. The money doesn’t matter!”
