I shook my head slightly. “Not great.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Later,” I said, forcing a smile. “Right now, I just want to have dinner with my kids.”
And so, we did. I listened to Rome’s elaborate retelling of a playground adventure involving a missing shoe and what may or may not have been a small earthquake. I helped Austin with a math problem that had stumped him. I wiped sauce from Aspen’s face and hands, marveling at how she’d managed to get it behind her ears.
Through it all, the board meeting loomed in my mind like a guillotine, the blade suspended, ready to fall.
After the kids were in bed, I retreated to my office now, though I still thought of it as his. I poured another glass of wine and sat in the dark, watching the moon rise over the hills.
The phone on the desk rang, its sharp sound cutting through the silence. I knew who it was before I picked it up.
“Hi,” Patrick said, his Scottish accent warm and familiar. “How did it go with Ashley?”
I closed my eyes, not ready to say the words aloud. But I did. “He said no. Said to come back in a year when things are ‘more stable.’”
Patrick’s exhale was audible across the line, a sound of frustration and disappointment that mirrored my own. “Shite. I’m sorry, Theresa. I really am.”
“So am I,” I said.
“Do you want me to come over? I can be there in twenty minutes.”
The offer was tempting—the thought of not being alone with my failure, of having someone real beside me in the dark. But what would be the point? There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do now.
“Not tonight,” I said. “I need to think.”
“You’ll find another way,” Patrick said, his voice steady with conviction. “I know it.”
His faith in me was touching, but it felt heavy tonight. After we said goodnight and I hung up the phone, I took another sip of wine, letting the silence of the house settle around me.
I’d tried everything. I’d played by the rules, I’d played the grieving widow, and I’d even tried playing the ruthless CEO. None of it had worked.
I picked up the illegal file Patrick had given me. The pages felt heavy in my hand, heavier than paper had any right to be. This was all I had left. It was a weapon that might destroy me as surely as it destroyed Arthur, but it was the only weapon in the room. And I couldn’t use it.
I looked at the photo of Marco on the desk, his smile frozen in time, full of optimism I no longer possessed.
“I tried, Marco,” I whispered to the empty room. “I tried to do it.”
Chapter
Twenty-Five
THERESA
I stoodin the women’s restroom of CarideoTech headquarters. My navy-blue suit was impeccable, the simple stud earrings gleamed, and my makeup was flawless. My hair was pulled back sleekly—a style that said professional and don’t fuck with me in equal measure. I looked like a damn-perfect CEO.
I just needed to convince eight people in a boardroom that I was one.
The bathroom door swung open, and Lisa appeared, her expression tight with worry. “They’re all in there. Johnson, Haskins, the entire board.”
“And Arthur?”
“Looks like the cat who ate the canary. He brought Helen too.”
My stomach clenched. Arthur bringing his wife was a statement—he was so confident of victory he’d brought an audience for his coronation. “Vultures,” I muttered. “Both of them.”
“It’s time,” Lisa said.
