The Billionaire's Fight For Redemption novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Conduct Clause

Anneliese pays three months' rent in cash on the foundation's conference table while Constance shames her before the donors, and Ansel says he won't interfere; that night he pounds on her shop door in the rain.

The foundation had its offices on the fourth floor of a Beacon Street brownstone.

Every wall in it held a photograph of Rosalind.

I walked in at ten with the notice in one hand and an envelope in the other.

Eight staff sat at open desks.

Two donors in good coats stood by the coffee table, holding programs from yesterday's memorial.

Constance sat at the head of the glass conference table, reading.

She looked up and smiled the same warm smile.

"Anneliese. Sweetheart. Come sit."

"I'll stand," I said.

I held up the notice. "You taped this to my door at 7:15."

"Oh, that." She took off her glasses. "I meant to talk to you today."

"About what?"

"I didn't want you to hear it from someone else."

She turned her face to the table, so the whole room could hear.

"The foundation can't keep subsidizing a lease for a woman who spent the night with a grieving widower."

Nobody at the desks moved.

"Not on this day of all days," Constance said. "I'm so sorry. It's the donors, you understand."

One donor looked at her shoes. The other looked at me.

My face went hot.

I could have said it was none of their business.

I could have asked why a woman who patted my hand in a bedroom had planned this before she opened the door.

But the donors were watching, and so was Rosalind, from forty framed photographs.

"Say that again," I said. "Slowly, so everyone can write it down."

Constance's smile stayed where it was.

"Under my lease," I said, "you can end the tenancy for non-payment, damage or illegal use. Which one is it?"

"The lease has a conduct clause."

"It has one for the shop. It doesn't have one for my bed."

Somebody at the back made a small sound, a cough or a laugh.

I opened the envelope and counted onto the glass.

"November rent. December. January."

The bills made a neat stack.

"Cash, in advance, so there's no non-payment. I'll take a receipt for all three."

"Anneliese, dear, that isn't how this works."

"Then show me how it works."

I kept my voice level. "I've paid on the first of the month for three years and never once been late."

Constance folded her hands.

"You're upset," she said. "That's natural. You've lost her too."

That was the worst of it, how reasonable she sounded.

I felt the room start to agree with her.

The elevator pinged behind me.

I knew who it was before I turned. The staff all sat up straighter.

Ansel came in with Hal one step behind him.

He wore yesterday's suit with no tie, and he hadn't shaved.

He stopped at the end of the table and looked at the stack of bills.

Then he looked at me, and I waited for him to say something that mattered.

"What's going on?" he asked Constance.

"A lease matter, dear. Nothing for you to worry about."

"Is it the foundation's decision?"

"It is."

"Then it's the foundation's business." His voice was flat and tired. "I won't interfere."

I laughed. It came out sharper than I meant.

"Of course you won't," I said.

His eyes cut to mine, and for half a second something moved in them.

"Don't," he said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't look at me like that. Not here."

"How should I look at you? You told them it was nothing."

Hal took a very interested step toward the donors.

Ansel looked past me at the wall of photographs.

He looked at the one where Rosalind is laughing on a boat, and he didn't answer.

Constance had written out a receipt in her neat hand.

I picked it up and put it in my bag, next to the envelope.

"I'll see you at the lease hearing," I said. "Or send someone to collect the rent. I open at nine."

I walked to the elevator.

Nobody stopped me, and nobody clapped either.

When the doors closed, my hands were shaking too hard to push the lobby button.

I stood there and breathed until the car started down.

I got through the day.

I sold forty stems of white ranunculus to a man buying his mother's funeral flowers.

Fran talked me into a sandwich, and I told her nothing.

At eleven that night I was alone in the back of the shop, cutting stems for the morning.

Someone pounded on the glass front door.

Through the rain-streaked window I could see him, bareheaded, soaked to the skin, with no coat.

Ansel.

He pounded again, flat-handed.

"Open it," he said.

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