Chapter 4: Whose Father

Ansel lived on the top floor of a glass tower over the lake.

The elevator opened straight into his apartment.

A housekeeper in a cardigan met us at the door with a tray.

Lila ate two pieces of toast standing up.

Then she fell asleep in the second guest room with her shoes still on.

I took them off her and pulled the blanket up.

When I came back to the main room, Ansel was standing at the long windows with his jacket off.

His sleeves were rolled to the elbow.

The city was black and gold behind him.

"Whose father?" I said.

He didn't turn.

"Mine."

"Roland ruined your father?"

"Six years ago he took my father's company. Hawke Lines. Twelve ships and a dock in Gary."

He still looked at the lake.

"Roland got the insurer to drop us, and then he got the contracts. My father died eight months later."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a stroke, in the parking lot of a law office."

I walked to the other end of the sofa and sat down because my knees had decided to.

"That's why you were at the dinner tonight."

"That's why I've been at every dinner of his for three years."

"You've been following Roland."

"Circling him," Ansel said. "I'd say following is the wrong word."

"And me?"

He turned around then.

"You're his stepdaughter, and you hold twenty percent of his company in about three weeks," he said.

"So yes, when I first learned what you were to him, I paid attention."

"I'm a lever."

"You were a name on a list."

"A name on a list that you sent flowers to for three years."

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