Chapter 5: Dinner with Victor

Victor's study smelled of cigar smoke and old leather.

The two guards at the door stepped aside for him without a word and did not look at me.

He closed the door, and the party noise dropped to a hum.

"Sit," he said.

I sat on the edge of a leather chair, and my pulse beat in my ears.

Behind the desk, a long velvet curtain hung from ceiling to floor over what had to be a window.

The bottom of it moved.

Only a little, only for a second, and it was the toe of a black waiter's shoe.

My mouth went dry.

Alec had said the service corridor.

He had not said he would come early.

Victor crossed to a painting of a ballerina in grey, swung it aside on a hinge, and showed me the safe behind it.

"My late wife danced," he said. "Meridian was her company before it was mine."

"I'm sorry," I said, because the page called for it.

He turned the dial with his thumb.

He did it slowly and with a showman's care, so that I would see that he trusted me.

The safe opened with a sigh.

He took out a small blue box and left the door standing open.

I was afraid.

If he looked left, he would see a shoe.

"These were hers," he said, and snapped the lid.

The pearls were two strands, creamy and very old.

He fastened them around my neck himself, with cool dry fingers.

"I want the board to see them on you at the gala," he said. "I want everyone to understand the family accepts you."

"That's very generous," I said.

"Is it?" He turned me around by the shoulders so that we faced each other, and I saw how closely he watched my eyes.

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