Chapter 12: The Plan

My mother's apartment smelled like toast and lemon cleaner.

Corinna sat at the kitchen table in yesterday's yellow dress with a mug going cold between her hands.

She had not slept either.

I shut the door behind me.

"Twenty-three days," I said.

She didn't look up.

"I wondered how long it would take you."

"You booked the room. You picked the dress. You told the Marlowe to let him up, and you didn't want them to call you."

"Yes."

"Sit down and tell me why, or I'll throw that mug at the wall."

"I'm already sitting."

She lifted her head, and her eyes were red and swollen and entirely steady.

"Mom's care has one condition," she said. "The wedding."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Foundation pays only while it stands. Eight months ago, Lavinia sat in this kitchen and told me so."

She looked around, at the yellow curtains, the cracked tile.

"She said the Foundation follows the family. She said she'd been looking for a wife for Sullivan who understood gratitude."

My stomach rolled over.

"She picked you."

"She picked me. I was drowning in Mom's bills, and I said yes in this chair before she finished the sentence."

"You never loved him."

"He's kind to me. He's never touched me, Jolene, not once, not past a kiss on the cheek."

I stared.

"We've been engaged eight months and I don't know what his hands feel like," she said.

"We're two people on a magazine page."

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