Tea With The Enemy

Elena arrived at 10:04 a.m.

She came alone. No driver. No assistant. Just a black wool coat and a small leather handbag and a look on her face that told Seraphina she had been awake half the night too.

The suite had been reset. Housekeeping had come. Fresh flowers. Fresh coffee. The cracked phone was in Seraphina's safe. The robe was hung up. The armor was back on. A white silk blouse, black trousers, hair in a low twist, jewelry minimal.

Elena walked in, set her handbag on the table, and stood in the middle of the room.

"Well," she said. "Good morning."

"Mrs. Cross."

"Do not do that. Not with me. Not after last night in the elevator. Sit down. Pour the tea."

Seraphina sat. Poured the tea. Her hands were steady. She had practiced that.

Elena took the cup. Did not drink from it. Set it down on the table between them.

"I am going to tell you three things," Elena said. "And then I am going to listen to whatever you need to say to me. And I will take whatever words you choose to give me, because I deserve all of them."

"Mrs. Cross."

"Elena."

Seraphina did not say it.

"The first thing," Elena said. "I have been working for six months to put together everything I have on Vanessa. Wire transfers. Hotel receipts. The confession of a woman named Elise Monroe who was paid to pose in the photos. I have it all. I was going to give it to Damien next week. Last night I gave it to him early."

"Why."

"Because my son was about to spend another year in the wrong woman's bed out of guilt, and I could not watch it anymore."

Seraphina set her cup down.

"The second thing."

Elena looked at her hands.

"I knew you were pregnant."

Seraphina stopped breathing.

"I knew the night he threw you out. I saw it on your face when you said the words. And I did not say anything, because in that moment I thought you were lying. That you were trying to keep him with a baby the way women like me in my generation were taught to. I thought you were scheming." She looked up. Her eyes were wet. "I was wrong. I have known I was wrong for a very long time. I have thought about you every day."

Seraphina could not speak.

"The third thing," Elena said. "You have a daughter."

"Yes."

"Is she well?"

"She is loved."

Elena closed her eyes. A tear slipped out.

"Thank you. For that. Thank you."

They sat in silence for a long moment.

Finally, Seraphina spoke.

"Why are you helping me?"

Elena opened her eyes.

"Because you are the only person left in this world who can break my son open. And I need him broken. I need him to feel what he did. And I need him to have to earn his way out of it, day by day, not the way he earned everything else in his life, which was by being born into money and assuming the world would bend. I need him to have to build something, for once, instead of buying it." She paused. "And because I owe you a debt I cannot pay, and helping you is the closest I can come to trying."

"What do you want from me?"

"Nothing."

"Everybody wants something."

"I want one thing. And I will not ask you to give it to me. I will only ask you to consider it, someday, when you are ready."

"What."

Elena looked at her directly.

"I want to meet my granddaughter."

Seraphina stood.

Walked to the window.

Looked out at Central Park.

She thought about Luna. The way Luna always asked, lately, whether she had a grandmother. The way the other children at her playgroup in London had grandmothers who brought biscuits and told stories about when their mothers were little.

Luna had no one. Aria had no one. Seraphina had built a company out of nothing because she had nothing else to build with.

"Not now," Seraphina said quietly.

"I understand."

"Maybe someday. Not now."

"I understand."

Seraphina turned back to her.

"What do we do about Vanessa?"

Elena smiled. It was a small smile but it had steel in it.

"We bury her."

"Publicly?"

"Publicly. Completely. By the time we are done, she will not be able to get a table at a restaurant in this city. I have the evidence. You have the story. Together, we are going to take her apart piece by piece in front of everyone who ever laughed at her jokes."

Seraphina nodded once.

"When do we start?"

"Tuesday."

"What is Tuesday?"

Elena stood. Picked up her handbag.

"Tuesday is the Metropolitan Charity Board luncheon. Vanessa is the co chair this year. Every woman who matters in this city will be there. I have already leaked the first piece of the story to the Times. It runs Tuesday morning, three hours before the luncheon."

"She will still show up."

"I am counting on it."

Elena walked to the door. Paused.

"Aria."

"Yes."

"I am sorry. For every single thing."

"I know."

She left.

Seraphina stood at the window a long time.