Chapter 5: The Kind One

Conrad took me to lunch on Monday at the grill where we used to celebrate closed quarters.

I said yes because I wanted to see what he would say when Roland wasn't in the room.

Lila was asleep at the penthouse with the housekeeper's cinnamon rolls on the nightstand.

Ansel drove me and parked at the curb.

"I'll be in the stairwell by the coat check," he said. "Not at the table."

"Why the stairwell?"

"You didn't invite me to the table."

"You're learning."

"I'm trying."

Conrad stood up when I came in.

He had a corner booth and a pot of tea already poured, the kind I liked, with too much honey.

"You look tired," he said. "Sit. I'll order for you."

"I'll order for myself."

He smiled. "That's the Jo I trained."

He waited until the waiter left.

Then he slid his phone across the tablecloth.

"I want you to see this before you hear any version of it from your stepfather," he said.

It was a text thread between him and Roland.

Roland: "She'll come around. Sign the proxy at the wedding."

Conrad: "I don't want to do this to her."

Roland: "You want the chair. This is how you get the chair."

I read it twice.

"You see?" Conrad said quietly. "I'm trapped in this too."

"He's made a dangerous game out of both of us."

"I'd never have said a word at that dinner if I'd known."

"You said you'd waited a long time for me to say yes."

"I was told to say that. I'm sorry, Jo. It was cowardly."

He looked sorry.

He looked sorrier than I'd ever seen a man look.

That was what bothered me.

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