Chapter Sixteen

Saffron's POV

I sent flowers on Monday. White roses, two dozen, the ones she once said smelled like clean sheets. The florist told me they were returned unopened by four o'clock.

I sent a letter on Tuesday. Three pages, in my own handwriting, torn up twice before I got a version I could bear. It came back with the seal unbroken.

On Wednesday I sent another. I did not know what else to do. I had spent my whole life being good at things, at business, at silence, at keeping my face still, and I could not find the first rule of this one. How do you apologize to a woman who has already stopped listening?

On Thursday I rewrote the settlement.

I sat in Mr. Dunmore's office at seven in the morning with a cup of coffee going cold between my hands and told him to draw up new terms. The house. The accounts. A third of my personal shares in Cole Group, transferred to her name outright, effective immediately.

Dunmore put down his pen. He was a careful man, and I had never seen him look at me like that.

"Sir. Are you certain?"

"Yes."

"A third of your holdings is a considerable sum."

"I know what it is."

"The board will object. Your mother will object, quite strenuously."

"She is not the one signing it."

He wrote it down. At the end he cleared his throat and said, very gently, "If I may. Ms. Laurent may not accept."

"She'll accept."

"Mr. Cole." He looked up. "It is not a matter of money."

I did not answer him. I knew he was right. I had known it since the night in the corridor, and still my hands moved forward on their own, like a man hauling a sack of coal toward a fire.

The silver tower rose over the street like something out of a bad dream. I had been inside it twice before, years ago, for a merger meeting that went nowhere. Now I walked through the revolving door at ten past nine with the new settlement in a leather folder and the whole lobby turned to look.

"I am here to see Ms. Isolde Laurent," I told the woman at the desk.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No."

"I am afraid that Ms. Laurent is unavailable."

"I will wait."

"I am afraid you will not." She pressed a button. Two security guards appeared on either side of the elevators, not touching me, merely existing. "Mr. Cole, I have been asked to inform you that you are no longer welcome on the premises."

"By whom?"

"By the owner."

"Then let the owner tell me himself."

"I would be delighted to."

The voice was dry and polite and came from behind me. I turned. Marcus Hale stood a few paces away with a tablet under his arm, in a suit that probably cost less than my watch and was worn twice as well. He looked, as always, like a man who had just finished a good lunch at someone else's expense.

"Mr. Hale."

"Mr. Cole." He gave a small nod. "I am afraid this is where our hospitality ends."

"I brought documents for Ms. Laurent. A revised settlement."

"I have read it." He held out his hand. "May I?"

I hesitated, then gave him the folder. He flipped it open, scanned the first page, and one eyebrow rose a quarter of an inch.

"That is very generous."

"It is meant to be."

"It is also three months too late." He closed the folder and handed it back. "She will not read it, Mr. Cole. She has asked me to return anything you send. Gifts, letters, flowers, everything. I do it myself so that she does not have to see your handwriting."

Every word was gentle. Every word cut. I stood very still.

"Tell me how she is," I said. "That's all. Just tell me that."

For a moment his face changed. Something almost human crossed it. "She is well," Marcus said. "She is eating. She is sleeping. She is not alone. That is more than I could say of you."

"Hale."

The word came from the elevator bank, quiet and unhurried, and the whole lobby seemed to drop a degree in temperature. Dacre Knight stepped out of the lift in a black coat, a folder in his hand, alone. The guards drifted back. Marcus stepped aside without a word.

"Mr. Cole," Dacre said.

"Knight."

"You are persistent."

"I am her husband."

"You were." He walked toward me, unhurried. "You have been told to leave, and you will leave. But before you do, I think you should hear something."

"I do not need..."

"Last night someone entered Ms. Laurent's apartment." His voice was perfectly flat. "Nothing was broken. Nothing was stolen, except a photograph of an ultrasound. Whoever took it left a note in its place. The handwriting has been examined. It belongs to your mother."

The floor seemed to tilt. I tried to speak, and for the second time in my life no sound came.

"I am not accusing you," Dacre said. "I do not believe you knew. But I would like you to understand what it means that she did." His gray eyes were glacial. "She is barely into her pregnancy, and it has already nearly broken her. She fainted in my arms. She cries when she thinks no one is listening. And your family has decided that this is the right moment to frighten her."

"I did not know."

"Then find out what else you do not know." He stepped aside. "And do it before I do."

My mother was in the conservatory when I got home, pruning an orchid with silver scissors. She did not look up when I came in.

"You are home early."

"You broke into her apartment."

"I entered a residence that was unlocked. It was a courtesy visit." Snip. A pale petal fell. "I was curious what kind of house she keeps. It is small. It is clean. It is a perfectly adequate home for a secretary."

"You took the ultrasound."

"I took what belongs to us."

"It does not belong to us. It is hers." My voice shook. I did not care. "If you go near her again, Mother, if you send one more man, one more letter, I will take you off the board. I will remove you from every position you hold."

She turned at last. She looked at me with the faintly amused tolerance of a woman who has outlived three husbands and a dozen scandals, and then she laughed.

"My dear boy. You cannot."

"Watch me."

"Forty percent of Cole Group is held in my name. Not your father's. Not yours. Mine." She set down the scissors. "Do you imagine I spent thirty years building this house without insuring it? Do you think the board does not understand who signs their checks?"

I could not speak.

"If you wish to threaten me, Saffron, do so with something sharp." She smiled. "I may even enjoy it."

"What do you want?"

"I want a grandchild with a Cole name. I will take it from whichever one of those women is more convenient." She picked up her scissors again. "And I have told you before. I always get what I want."

I backed out of the conservatory. The glass door clicked shut behind me. I was halfway down the hallway toward the stairs, my ears ringing, when I heard a sound I had not expected.

A soft step. A rustle of silk.

Nyx stood at the end of the corridor in her robe, her phone in her hand, her face lit from below by the screen. She had been there a long time. I could tell from her eyes. They were wide and bright and entirely awake, the way a cat's eyes are when it sees something move.

"Saffron," she said slowly. "Is your ex wife really pregnant?"