Chapter 7

NORA

The question was still unanswered. A hundred cameras were pointed at my face. Edward stood at the side of the stage, looking as though he wanted to cut the microphone himself.

I did not give him the chance.

I had two choices. I could be the girl who ran from the Sinclair house with nothing, or the woman I had spent five years building. I chose in one second. I had not wanted this on my first day, but I had rehearsed this moment too many times to let it shake me.

"Yes," I said. My voice was clear. "I was married to Charles Sinclair."

The room was still. I did not soften it. I did not look away from the man.

"That marriage ended. I left with one suitcase." I let the room hold the silence. "Five years later, I am standing here as the Chairman of Beaumont Group. I will let this room decide which of those two stories is worth printing."

The old journalist opened his mouth, but no words came. The other reporters sat with their pens resting on their pads, caught between the gossip they wanted to dig up and the company in my hands.

"The Beaumont merger is finished," I added, closing my folder with a snap. "The numbers are open for everyone to see. Work starts tomorrow. Thank you."

I stepped back from the podium before anybody could ask another question, and walked down the center aisle with my head high.

Behind me, the silence broke into noise, shouted questions, fingers racing across laptops as the news went out. I did not look back. I walked through the double doors and left them in it.

Edward was waiting in the corridor. His face was pale, but his eyes were bright with pride. He waited until the heavy doors shut behind us.

"Nora," he said softly, hurrying to match my steps. "Your mother would have stood up and clapped. You took the stick out of his hand completely."

"They were always going to ask, Edward. Better I give them the answer than let them dig for it."

"The press was the small thing, my dear." His voice dropped as we reached the elevator. He looked down at his screen. "The board has been sitting in that room for twenty minutes. They watched it all live."

I pressed the button for the top floor. "And Gregory?"

"Your uncle has been President here a very long time, Nora." He was warning me without naming a name. "He has his own people in that room. Brace yourself."

I watched the floor numbers climb. The journalists had been strangers; cold facts were enough to shut their mouths. Family was a different thing. Gregory Vance had waited for my mother to fall, and he was looking at my new title like a joke. The public win was over. The real war was behind the next door.

The boardroom was long, lined with leather chairs and a wall of windows over the river. Twelve directors sat with their copies of the contract stacked in front of them. Most of them looked up when I entered, measuring me again.

Gregory sat at the right hand of the Chairman's chair. Fifty-four, with the thick dark hair of the Vance family and an expensive gray suit. He did not look like an enemy.

He looked like a man who had spent his whole life in rooms like this one. He was my mother's half-brother, the son of our grandfather's mistress, and he had carried that second-class wound his whole life.

"Nora." He stood halfway, with a smile he had to work for. "Welcome back to the building. We were finalizing the merger plan while we waited for your press to finish."

That word back. He was welcoming me like a guest in a house he believed was his.

Harold Pierce and Sumner Caldwell sat at his left, two old directors who had been eating out of his hand for years. They did not look at me. They looked at Gregory, shifting when he shifted. The three of them were a wall at the end of the table.

"The press is over, Uncle Gregory." I took the seat at the head of the table; Edward sat at my left. "The market has the numbers. Let us go straight to the quarter's allocation."

"Of course." Gregory leaned back and folded his hands. He turned to Edward, leaving me out entirely. "Edward, did the team finish the check on the Rotterdam docks? We need that cleared before month end."

It was disrespect, and it was deniable.

"The team reported to the Chairman's office yesterday, Gregory," Edward said firmly.

Caldwell cleared his throat and tapped the page in front of him. "There is also the new computer system for the offices. President Gregory and I have picked the contractor for the New York branch. Better to use our own people than waste time on a fresh bid."

"We need stability," Pierce added, nodding at Gregory. "In a time like this, the company should be in experienced hands."

Three remarks, each one deniable, each one telling the room I was a child wearing my mother's title. The other directors stayed quiet, waiting to see whether the new Chairman would take it and sit down.

I let the silence hold for two seconds. I did not raise my voice. I waited until Gregory reached for another folder, certain he had won.

"The contract for the New York branch is not settled," I said.

Caldwell's hand froze on his papers. "We spent three months vetting that firm, Nora."

"You spent three months vetting a company that filed for bankruptcy in Delaware four weeks ago." I leaned forward and looked straight at him. "The system we need has to hold. The firm you chose cannot. The contract is rejected. We open a new bidding tomorrow at nine."

The table went cold. Pierce looked at his papers as though they were burning his fingers. The colour left Gregory's mouth, but he did not shout.

"A good catch, Chairman." The title was bitter in his mouth, but he forced the smile through. "We will redirect the contract tomorrow. Shall we move on?"

He took the hit and moved the meeting forward before the other directors could see his face. The rest went fast… small business, routine, but everything in the room had changed.

By noon the folders were closed and the directors began to file out. Edward touched my shoulder once, well done, and went to find the lawyers. He left me alone in the room with Gregory.

Gregory did not leave.

He stayed at the end of the table, sliding his pen into a leather case. The smooth face from the meeting was gone now, and something older sat in its place as he looked at me across the empty room.

"You handled the table well." He stood and came down to my side. "Your mother had the same gift. She liked to catch people in the fine print."

"The fine print is where the money lives, Gregory."

"True." He stopped beside my chair, leaned against the table, crossed his arms. "But the print in tomorrow's papers will not be fine at all. I saw the video from downstairs."

I kept my face still. "The press have their answer."

"They have an answer." His voice went soft and kind, which was worse than any insult. "But investors have fear, my dear. A Chairman who opens her first day talking about her own divorce — that does not give the market peace. People will start asking whether this company runs on business or on old family quarrels."

He was not mocking the gossip anymore. He was sharpening it.

"The Sinclair marriage is an old story," I said.

"Not while Charlie Sinclair is bidding for the same South American shipping lines we want." His eyes narrowed. "The board does not like personal lives bleeding into strategy, Nora. A bad morning becomes a bad quarter very quickly. If the stock slips even a little because the city is talking about your marriage, the board will ask whether the company is in the right hands."

He did not say ‘I will have you removed.’ He did not need to. He had picked up the ghost I had owned in public that morning and turned it into a weapon before noon.

The past I thought I had buried was already aimed at my chest, and the man holding it was my mother's brother.

"I will see you at the morning meeting, Chairman." He straightened his suit and gave me a small, clean smile.

He walked to the door, his shoes silent on the rug. He wore the smile of a man who had waited twenty years for my mother to make one mistake, and had just realised her daughter had handed him the knife to do the job.