Chapter 12: The Offer

I went down in Lucian's shirt and my bare feet and opened the street door myself.

Leopold stood up from the stoop and brushed off his coat.

"Miss Orme. You keep early hours."

"You sat on my step for an hour."

"Forty minutes. I wanted you rested for what comes next."

He held out the envelope.

I did not take it.

"Ninety million dollars," he said, "for the thirty-four percent, and your signature on a paper saying you have nothing to say about 2005."

"Sign it tonight at the rehearsal dinner, in front of the Eustises and my board."

"Why in front of them?"

"Because a deal made in public is a deal nobody questions."

"And if I don't?"

"On Friday morning, the Herald prints a ledger of eleven million dollars, in Anselm's hand, beside a settlement your grandmother cashed."

"Forty million."

"Page one." He smiled.

"The Goddess of Beacon Hill, born to a thief and raised on hush money."

Lucian had come down the stairs behind me, barefoot in his jeans.

"Dad."

"You're not invited," Leopold said, not looking at him. "But the bride will want her groom at the dinner."

"I'm not marrying her."

"Then you will say so in front of her father's friends, and see how far your pride carries you without a penny." He turned to me.

"Eight o'clock."

"The Eustis boathouse."

"Wear something dark."

He got into the town car and was gone.

I closed my hand on the cold doorknob.

"You don't have to go," Lucian said.

"Yes, I do."

"Del, you can't sign."

"I'm not going to sign."

I turned and looked up at the sky, going pink over the rooftops.

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