Chapter 8: The Board

Odile called me at seven on Monday morning.

"Wear something sensible," she said. "Come to the Saxon building. Forty-first floor. Sit at the back and say nothing."

"Why?"

"Because my grandson is about to do something very stupid, and I'd like it witnessed."

I wore a gray jacket and flat shoes and told Max by text that I'd be late.

The boardroom on forty-one had a table the length of a bowling lane and a wall of windows over Elliott Bay.

I had never been inside it.

In three years of marriage, I had been inside the lobby twice, both times to deliver a lunch.

Odile met me at the door, put a hand on my back, and steered me to a chair in the corner behind a potted fern.

"Don't wave," she said.

A dozen people sat around the table.

Seven were Saxon directors in dark suits.

Two were an elderly couple in the middle of the long side, he in a bolo tie and she in a cream cardigan.

A leather portfolio lay between them.

They owned Pacific Reach, a hundred and ten family hotels across the West.

Kieran had courted them for three years.

I had cooked for them once, in the penthouse, and been introduced as the housekeeper.

Victoria sat at Kieran's right hand, perfectly composed in ivory silk.

When she saw me behind the fern, her eyes flickered and her pen stopped.

"Good morning," Kieran said, standing at the head of the table.

He didn't look at the corner.

"Thank you for flying in," Kieran said to the couple. "We were going to close today."

"We were," said the old man, pleased.

"I'd like to tell you something first."

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