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“I’m guessing you’ve heard,” she says, her voice clipped. She’s all business, and I appreciate that. “I had a phone call from The Correspondent asking for a quote.”
My stomach tightens. The Correspondent is a broadsheet. It’s well respected, not a sleazy tabloid looking for a clickbait article. “Is that who it was? They called my father first.”
“So I gathered.” Saskia clears her throat. “They’re running a piece tomorrow morning. It’ll go online at midnight, then in print. They say they have proof of misuse of charitable funds. And of your father using it for his own purposes.”
Behind me, I feel Alex go still.
“What kind of proof?” My jaw tightens.
“Receipts, photographs. And a source that they trust.”
“Who’s the source?” I ask.
“They’re not named. Apparently ‘a friend of the family’. You know the drill.”
Somebody who’s slippery enough to talk, but not stupid enough to be named.
“Can we stop it?” I shake my head. Jesus, this is bad timing.
She sighs. “I don’t think so, Theo. It sounded like a fait accompli”
“It’s two days before Christmas, for Christ’s sake. Don’t they have anything better to do?”
“Obviously not.” She sounds as annoyed as I am. “But on the bright side, hopefully everybody will be too busy to notice the article. And if we’re really lucky a new scandal will come along by the New Year. In the meantime, we need to strategize.”
“We’re all in Norfolk,” I remind her. “The party’s tonight.”
She pauses for a moment, like she’s thinking things through.
“Okay. That’s probably a good thing,” she says carefully. “It’s harder to doorstop you there. I’ll start drafting up a statement on behalf of the hotel group. I’m in two minds as to whether we’ll issue it or not, but it’ll be good to have something prepared. We’ll watch the reaction and make a decision after that.”
“Thank you.”
“And in the meantime, just…”
Make sure my father behaves. Don’t let him talk to anybody.
“Yes,” I reply. “I’ve got it. Nothing will leak here. I won’t let him speak to anybody.”
“Good,” she says. “I’d better go.”
“Thanks, Saskia.”
“I’m only doing my job.”
We ring off, and I look at Alex, then at my father. He avoids my eye, refilling his glass instead.
“I don’t know why you’re all so serious about this,” he says. “It’ll blow over.”
“No, it won’t. And if you’ve misspent funds, it could be a legal matter,” I snap at him, because I’m so sick of being the reliable one.
He grimaces but has the good grace to at least keep his mouth shut.
Alex clears his throat. “Somebody needs to tell our mother about this article.”
They both look at me.
“Hell no,” I tell them. Then I narrow my eyes at my father. “You need to tell her. Before she hears it from somebody else.”
