Chapter 12: Ansel's POV: The Folder

Ansel's POV

She walked out of that boardroom with her chin up and her eyes gone flat, and I knew before she said a word.

Conrad had gotten to her.

Lila stood next to me at the elevator, still looking back at the boardroom doors.

Jo came up to us and took her sister by the shoulders.

"Go with Ansel's driver," she told her. "He'll take you to a friend's, and I'll call tonight."

"Jo, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'll explain later."

She sent Lila down with the driver.

She waited until the doors closed.

Then she turned to me and said, very evenly, "Conrad told me to ask you what I signed six years ago."

I had rehearsed this for years.

I had planned a dinner, a bottle of wine, and a table with a lamp.

None of it was in my head.

"Not tonight," I said. "Now. Come home with me."

We rode up to the penthouse in the private elevator with a foot of air between us.

She didn't touch me.

I put the folder on my desk, in the lamplight, and I stood on the far side of it.

She did not open it.

"Say it first," she said.

"Six years ago, my father's insurer dropped Hawke Lines, three weeks before a renewal."

"I know. You told me."

"I didn't tell you why."

My mouth was dry.

"They dropped him because of a sworn statement. Nine pages. It said our safety logs had been falsified for two years."

"Had they?"

"No. Every entry was true. My father kept the logs himself, in pencil, in a green ledger he loved."

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