Part 2
“I do not take instructions from hired assistants.”
Daniel’s expression did not change. “I’m an attorney.”
“You carry my son’s bags and repeat his orders.”
Nathan had never seen Daniel offended by anything. The man’s face remained calm now, but he closed the folder more carefully than necessary.
Vanessa reached for Eleanor’s phone.
Nathan stood.
“Don’t touch it.”
“It belongs to Mom.”
“It was used during whatever happened here.”
Eleanor gave a thin laugh. “Are you accusing me of committing a crime in my own kitchen?”
Nathan looked at Emily and Lucy inside the locked pantry.
“No,” he said. “I’m refusing to help you decide what this was.”
Eleanor’s eyes moved toward the open front door visible through the living room. The white silk of her blouse rose and fell faster than before.
Vanessa said, “We were trying to calm Emily down. Lucy became hysterical because her mother was hysterical. We put them somewhere quiet.”
“You locked them in a pantry.”
“For twenty minutes.”
Emily spoke behind Nathan.
“Three hours.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Eleanor said, “She has no sense of time when she is emotional.”
Daniel looked at the phone on the island. “The active call may have a start time.”
Eleanor moved toward it.
Nathan stepped into her path.
She stopped so close he could smell her perfume, the same dry rose scent she had worn when he was a child.
“You will regret humiliating me,” she said quietly.
Nathan had heard variations of that sentence his entire life. At eleven, when he refused to attend a donor dinner after his father struck a dockworker. At seventeen, when he chose a public university instead of the school she had announced to her friends. At thirty-two, when he married Emily without holding the reception at the Cole estate.
Regret had always meant consequences arranged by Eleanor.
Nathan looked at her now and felt no fear.
The absence of fear did not make him feel brave. It made him feel late.
“Take your purse,” he said. “Leave the phone.”
Eleanor’s face hardened. “This property is held by the Cole Family Trust.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Vanessa looked at him sharply.
Daniel removed another document from his case.
Nathan continued, “That is why Daniel came with me.”
Eleanor said nothing.
“The transfer you attempted last week was rejected,” Nathan said. “The power of attorney you used was revoked eighteen months ago.”
Vanessa looked at her mother.
Eleanor’s eyes stayed on Nathan. “You have misunderstood a routine estate correction.”
“You submitted a deed moving this house from my name and Emily’s name into a trust you control.”
“The house has always belonged to the family.”
“It belongs to my wife and me.”
“It was purchased with Cole money.”
“It was given to us in Dad’s will.”
“Your father intended it to remain protected.”
Daniel said, “His written instructions were unambiguous.”
Eleanor turned on him. “You drafted those instructions.”
“I did.”
“And you encouraged a dying man to indulge his son.”
Daniel’s voice remained quiet. “Charles asked that Nathan receive the house free of trust control because he did not want you using it to govern his marriage.”
Vanessa’s head turned toward her mother.
Nathan had not known that final sentence. He looked at Daniel.
Daniel lowered his eyes briefly. “Your father’s letter is in the file.”
Eleanor’s mouth opened, but Emily spoke from the pantry.
“Nathan.”
He turned immediately.
Lucy had begun trembling. Not crying now. Shaking.
The confrontation disappeared from his mind.
He crouched.
“I need to take her somewhere quiet,” Emily said.
Nathan nodded. “The living room?”
“No. Outside.”
“It’s cold.”
“I need air.”
He looked at her bruised face. “May I carry Lucy?”
Emily’s arms tightened again.
“No.”
“All right.”
She attempted to rise with the child against her chest.
Her legs failed.
Nathan caught her beneath the elbow without pulling her away from Lucy. Emily gave a sharp breath but did not recoil this time.
“I can help you stand,” he said. “You keep holding her.”
Emily nodded.
He braced one foot, lifted carefully, and felt how little strength she had. When she reached the doorway, she leaned against him for half a second before forcing herself upright.
Eleanor watched them.
“I offered her food,” she said.
No one answered.
“I gave Lucy water.”
Emily stopped.
“You poured it on the floor,” she said.
Vanessa scoffed. “Because you slapped it out of my hand.”
“You told her she couldn’t drink until she apologized.”
“She kicked me.”
“She was scared.”
“She is six years old, Emily. That is old enough to understand consequences.”
Nathan’s hand closed around Emily’s upper arm—not gripping, only supporting. He could feel her shaking through the cardigan.
Lucy lifted her face.
“Aunt Vanessa pulled my hair.”
Every adult in the room became silent.
Vanessa’s lips parted.
“She was fighting me,” she said.
Lucy pressed her face into her mother’s neck.
Nathan turned toward his sister.
Daniel moved one step closer, not between them but near enough to intervene if necessary.
Nathan did not raise his voice.
“You will not come within fifty feet of my daughter again.”
Vanessa’s confidence faltered. “You don’t know what happened.”
“I know she believes you hurt her.”
“Children say things.”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “And this time everyone is going to listen.”
Eleanor picked up her purse from a chair near the breakfast table.
“This is temporary hysteria,” she said. “When you understand what Emily has been doing behind your back, you will come to me.”
Nathan looked at her. “Leave.”
She waited for him to soften.
He did not.
Vanessa gathered her coat. At the doorway, she turned toward Emily.
“You should tell him why we were here.”
Nathan stepped between them again.
Vanessa gave him a nervous smile that looked almost like the one she had worn when he entered the kitchen. “You think you came home to rescue an innocent woman. Ask her what she signed.”
Emily’s weight shifted beside him.
Nathan felt it.
May you like
Eleanor took Vanessa’s arm.
“Not now.”
