Chapter 4 The Family Gathering

| •Marin• |

I barely slept.

By morning the headlines had multiplied. My phone stayed face down on the nightstand until my mother finally took it away from me.

She stayed beside me while I picked at a breakfast I couldn't stomach. When I finally got up to dress, she squeezed my hand once. I held her gaze for a second, then turned toward the stairs.

By early afternoon, I was on my way to the Vane estate. Alone.

The gates opened before the car reached them. The estate hadn't changed since I was Eleven. Same gravel under the tires, same cypress lining the drive, same iron gates swinging open like they already knew who I was.

Past the east lawn, the old hangar still sat where it always had, holding the small private plane Alfred rarely flew anymore.

Cedric's car sat by the fountain when I pulled in. Weston's uncle had always been one of the first to arrive for family dinners, and rarely the last to have something to say.

Helena stepped out beside him in something pale, not a crease in it anywhere. She caught my eye and inclined her head.

"Marin." Her voice carried easily across the courtyard. "You look well, considering."

"Considering what, exactly?"

"Oh, nothing." A small smile. "Everything, I suppose."

Adrian pulled in behind me, unhurried as ever. Weston and his cousin had spent most of their lives being compared with each other, and Adrian had never seemed particularly fond of the comparison.

"Marin." His smile arrived before he did. "Been a while."

"Not long enough, apparently."

He laughed like I'd meant it kindly. He always did that.

Tessa and Rhys came in behind him, still arguing about a golf handicap as they crossed the courtyard. Neither noticed me until Tessa glanced up and called my name.

"Marin."

"Hi, Tessa."

Rhys gave me a nod. "Good to see you."

"You too."

I let myself in through the front and found Weston already standing near the dining room doors, talking low with one of the staff. He looked up when I crossed the threshold.

I walked past him.

“Did you sleep?”

I stopped.

The question wasn't what I'd expected from him. Of all the things he could have said after last night, he'd chosen that.

“Does it matter?”

He looked at me for a moment and said nothing.

That's what I thought.

“You look exhausted.”

I had no answer for that, so I walked into the dining room.

The table was already half full, windows open despite the season, rosemary and something roasting drifting in from the kitchen. A maid moved down the row filling water glasses.

Grandfather Alfred looked up and found me, and something in his face eased.

"Marin." He patted the seat beside him. "Come, sit here."

I did.

"You look tired, sweetheart."

"It's been a long few days."

"I imagine it has." He reached for water instead of the wine at his elbow. "You know, I still remember the summer you came to stay when you were Eleven. You wouldn't say two words at this table for a week."

"I was terrified of all of you."

"With good reason." He smiled, faint. "This family takes some getting used to."

Eleven was also the summer I stopped being afraid to be here. Weston did something for me that summer, once. He probably forgot it within the week.

I never told anyone that.

Down the table, Cedric silenced Tessa and Rhys with a look. Alfred sighed, and the warmth in his face dimmed.

"This scandal isn't just Weston's problem, or yours, Marin. I had two calls this morning from people your father used to call friends, asking questions I didn't have good answers for." He shook his head. "Two families, one crisis. I'm the only one left old enough at this table to remember why we built this alliance in the first place."

"That isn't why I asked for a divorce."

"I know." His eyes moved, briefly, toward Weston. "It rarely is."

Cedric set down his fork.

"With respect, Father, perhaps this is the wrong moment for old history. The real question is what Weston intends to do about the board's confidence, which, from what I understand, is sitting somewhere near zero."

"The board's confidence isn't yours to manage, Cedric," Weston said, without looking up.

"Perhaps." Cedric's smile stayed pleasant. "But it will be someone's problem if this continues."

"Careful," Weston said.

Helena lifted her wine but didn't drink. Her eyes moved between the two men.

Before Cedric could answer, the doors opened.

Serafina stood there, dark green, the little boy's hand in hers.

Nobody had warned me.

She glanced around the table, then gave Alfred a small, polite smile.

"Good afternoon. I'm sorry we're late."

Alfred looked at her for a while.

"Come in, Serafina."

She nodded and led the boy inside.

"Serafina," Cedric said.

She looked toward him.

"Cedric."

Adrian had been reaching for his glass. His hand stopped.

He looked at Serafina, then at the boy beside her.

His fingers closed around the stem of the glass.

"Well," he said after a moment, lifting it, "this should make this afternoon interesting."

Serafina didn't answer. She simply led the boy to the empty seat near the far end and helped him into it.

I watched her straighten his collar.

The boy swung his legs beneath the table.

Serafina leaned toward him.

"Eli, sit properly."

Eli.

So that was his name.

Cedric looked at the boy, then back at Weston.

"I suppose our corporate succession plans are expanding, Weston," he said after a moment.

Weston turned toward him.

"Cedric."

"I'm simply observing."

His eyes moved again to the boy.

"The boy has your look. Whatever else this family is about to lose, the resemblance isn't in question."

Weston put his glass down.

"That's enough."

Adrian leaned back, swirling his drink.

"Is it?" His voice stayed lazy. "Half this family's future just walked in wearing green and sat down like she owns the silverware."

Serafina's hand tightened around her fork.

Eli looked from one face to another.

Weston moved before I even understood what I was seeing.

His chair scraped back, hard enough that every other conversation at the table died.

"He's four."

His palm came down flat against the wood.

Glasses jumped. Water sloshed over the rim of mine and onto my hand before I could pull it back.

"Say one more word about him like he isn't sitting right there, and I don't care whose son you are. You'll finish that sentence outside this house."

The room went still.

Adrian put his glass down.

Serafina's hand found Eli's under the table, pulling him closer.

He only blinked up at Weston, too young to understand why the room had gone quiet like that.

Weston stood there a moment longer than he needed to, breathing hard, knuckles white against the wood.

I had never seen him like this.

I'd watched Weston handle hostile boardrooms without raising his voice. I'd watched him stand through accusations that would have made other men lose their tempers. Even when our marriage had become something any of us knew how to fix, he'd remained controlled.

But one remark about Eli had put him on his feet.

He lowered himself back into his chair. His hand found the boy's shoulder on the way down.

The boy leaned into him without hesitation.

Weston finally lifted his eyes. They met mine for a second. Whatever had been in his face disappeared almost immediately.

I looked down at my hands.

Alfred pushed himself to his feet. He rested a hand on his cane and headed for the door.

I waited until he reached the library, then followed him.

The library doors stood open. Alfred was by the tall windows, his hands folded behind his back as he looked out over the gardens.

“I wondered how long you'd wait,” he said, without turning.

“I wasn't going to sit through lunch and pretend that's not why I came.”

He turned. In the room away from everyone else, the lines around his eyes seemed deeper than they had at the table.

“You already know what I'm going to ask.”

His eyes closed.

“I can't grant it.”

"Grandfather—"

“I don't want to punish you for any of this. You owe this family nothing more than you've already given it.” His voice thickened. “But if I approve this divorce now, everything two men spent their lives building starts coming apart, and the timing couldn't be worse. I'm asking you, the one person in this family I've never had to protect from its own ambition, to carry this burden a little longer. I hate asking you for that.”

I said nothing. For a while, we stayed that way.

“I walked in here believing you'd be the one person who could let me go.”

"I know." He took my hand, his grip lighter than I remembered. "I'm sorry it isn't today."

I left a few minutes later. The hallway had emptied, the family already drifting toward the doors.

I found Weston near the entrance.

Serafina stood beside him, Eli's hand in hers again. Weston bent to say something low to the boy, then straightened and walked them both toward the door.

He didn't look back for me.

I rested a trembling hand over my stomach.

“You'll never know,” I whispered.

Not until I'm gone.