Chapter 4: Dad's Office

My father's office is on the fortieth floor, under my bedroom, and it has a view of the whole park.

I walked in at four exactly, with my ring on and my face arranged.

Preston was already there, sitting on the leather sofa with a tablet on his knee.

His collar was crisp and his hair was combed.

"There she is," he said, and stood up to kiss me.

I let him.

His mouth was warm, and I thought of a white hotel robe, and I kept my hands loose at my sides.

"You look tired, sweetheart," my father said from behind his desk.

Henrik Lindholm is sixty-three, with silver hair and the kind of voice that makes strangers sit up straighter.

He has said sweetheart to me every day of my life, and until that afternoon I had liked it.

"Long night," I said. "Marisol is rebooking my fitting."

"That girl is a gift," he said. "Don't let her work too hard."

"I won't."

He poured me tea from the silver pot, because he always does, and set it in front of me with both hands.

The cup was my mother's pattern, white with a thin blue line, and I held it so I would have something to hold.

"I want to talk about my mother's shares," I said.

The room did not change.

My father's hand stayed on the teapot, and Preston's tablet stayed on his knee.

"What about them, sweetheart?"

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