Chapter 5: A Cake from Mother

"Darling," Genevieve said.

"You left before anyone cut your cake."

She held up the pink box.

Behind her, across the quiet street, a white van with a satellite dish on its roof had parked under a streetlamp.

Its side door was open and a camera was pointing at my face.

I felt six men come up the hall at my back.

They didn't say anything.

They simply stood there, and the porch light turned them all to the same dark shape.

"How did you find this house?" I asked.

"I called the Gallivan family office this morning," she said.

"I introduced myself as a concerned mother."

Her eyes went over the brothers one by one, calm and bright, and came back to me.

"I'm so sorry about last night," she said.

"I was in shock, and so was Edmund," she said.

"The lawyers said it had to be public, and I was a coward."

Her voice caught.

Her hand went to her throat, to her own pearls.

A tear ran down her cheek, perfectly timed, and I watched the camera across the street lean in.

I had watched her do this at every charity gala I had ever planned.

I had called it grace.

"Come home with me," she said.

"We'll talk it through."

"Whatever has happened, you are still my girl."

"I don't think I am," I said.

"You said it in front of two hundred people."

"I said what a test said," she answered.

"I never said I'd stop loving you."

She reached into her handbag and took out a sheet of heavy cream paper and a gold pen.

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