I Sent Him to Prison, Now I'm Falling for His Brother novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Terms

I called the number on his card at six the next morning.

He picked up on the first ring.

"I don't owe you anything," I said. "And you don't owe me. But I'll take your signature."

"All right."

"I'm coming to watch you refuse it."

"The board meets Friday at ten. Foundation office, third floor."

"I'll be there at nine fifty."

"You'll want to be there earlier. My mother will want to see you before she sits down."

"Why?"

"Because she'll try to buy you one more time," Darius said. "I'd like you to hear it."

He hung up first.

I stood in my kitchen and realized I had been holding my breath for a whole minute.

On Friday I took a half day and wore my blazer.

The Foundation office was three rooms above a bank.

Cornelia Stafford waited for me in the first one, alone at a long oak table with a tea tray.

"Sit," she said pleasantly.

"I'll stand."

"You're very good at making a scene, Miss Corwin. I'll give you that."

"It's Nadine."

"I'll call you what I like." She poured herself a cup. "I thought we might talk like women. You spoke very well at the gala. The press has been kind to you. I'm told you're on the front page of three papers."

"I didn't ask for that."

"Everyone's famous for a week." She stirred in a sugar cube. "My son Darius has a soft heart and a poor sense of what it costs. I'd like you to leave him out of this."

"He's the one who offered."

"Offered what? A free vote?" She smiled. "Nothing is free. What do you think he wants from a girl who works a counter?"

"Mother."

Darius stood in the doorway in a charcoal suit.

His gray eyes went to me and then to her.

"I would like you to stop talking to her," he said.

"We were having tea."

"You were having a negotiation. Come in, Nadine. Take the chair at my right."

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