LOGIN"Atlas. About last night."He was at the kitchen island in a different suit. The folder Theron had brought at three in the morning was no longer on the marble. Marisol had cleared it."I sent Theron home at five. He'll come back at seven. We aren't going to do anything about Vivienne today.""She didn't call.""She didn't. She will. Probably within the week. When she does, I'll let you know. The folder is now in a safe in the Marchetti Holdings building. We have copies. We have a plan. Today you're going to your gallery and I'm going to my office. We're going to live a normal Tuesday.""Normal.""As normal as we can. Eat. I'll be home at seven."He kissed the top of my head before he left. The kiss was the second one he had ever given me there. The first had been at the kitchen island four weeks ago when he had walked out for the office after handing me the deal memo Bea had used to test me. He hadn't, in the weeks since the contract had died, treated the kissing of me as a duty he ha
"You came home."Atlas was in the foyer at ten twenty-eight in the morning. He was in the suit. The one he'd been wearing in the photograph from 2021. I'd only just realized it. He'd kept it for four years and he'd put it on this morning at six because he hadn't known what else to put on."I came home."He didn't move from the foyer. He held both hands at his sides. He let me set my bag down. He let me take off my coat. He let me hang it on the hook beside his."Lu.""Atlas.""I read the part of the letter Theron told me he had given you anyway.""I read all of it.""Are you angry with him for delivering it.""No.""Are you angry with me.""No."I walked past him into the kitchen. Marisol was at the island. She didn't look up. She set a plate of pastries down on the marble and a cup of espresso beside it and she walked out of the kitchen without acknowledging that I had returned, because Marisol had been in this household for twenty years and knew when not to be in a room.He followed
"Mrs. Marchetti."Theron Vance was at the door of the DUMBO sublet at six on Sunday evening. Cosima had been gone for three hours. Margot had texted at five to say she was going home to Brooklyn Heights for the night. I'd been alone since."Theron. Atlas told you not to come.""Atlas told me not to come if he could help it. He told me to come if Cosima had been here. Cosima was here. I am here."I let him in.He didn't sit. He didn't take off his coat. He held a sealed cream envelope. He set it on the wooden table by the window."He has been writing this since you left. He didn't finish it until forty minutes ago. He gave it to me at five forty-five and told me not to deliver it. I am delivering it anyway. I am telling you that he told me not to. I am telling you because I work for him and you should know what he asked. I am also delivering it because I work for Cosima first and Cosima told me to.""Theron.""Yes.""How long have you worked for Cosima.""Since I was hired by Atlas in 2
"Four flights, Lu. Are you serious."Margot was at the door of the DUMBO sublet at five on Friday afternoon with a suitcase, a bottle of Bordeaux, and an expression I'd seen exactly once, which had been when her brother had been admitted to Bellevue three years ago."Four flights. I'm serious.""Why.""Because the broker had nothing on a one-week lease in Tribeca that I could take without using Atlas's name. The DUMBO sublet was the only one I could take with my own signature. The owner is in Paris until April."She climbed the four flights behind me. She set the wine on the kitchen counter, which was eight feet of butcher block in a galley I could see all of from where she stood. The window faced west. The Manhattan Bridge was on the right. The river was below it. The light at five was the color the city goes in late October when the sky has decided what kind of evening it's giving you."Lu.""Yes.""Tell me everything."I told her. I told her the four pieces. I told her about the pho
"Sit."The library at eight on Friday morning had three pieces of evidence in it that hadn't been there yesterday. A folder. A photograph face-down on the table. A small velvet box my mother-in-law had sent from Florence three days ago and which I'd, on Atlas's instruction, worn around my neck since I'd dressed at seven-thirty.I sat.Atlas stood at the window. He had a cup of coffee. He didn't drink it. He looked at the river for a count."Lu.""Yes.""I am going to tell you four pieces of news. I am going to tell them in the order I want you to hear them, which is not the order they happened. I am asking you not to interrupt until I have finished all four. Then I will answer any question you have.""All right."He turned from the window."First. I own Pinnacle Asset Group. I've owned it for six years. Pinnacle is the parent company of Hayes Capital Partners. I bought Pinnacle in 2019 because I knew, by then, that Carter Hayes had asked you to marry him. I bought the parent of his fir
"Daddy."Hudson was at the Westbrook Capital board meeting at three on Thursday afternoon. I'd come uptown for a Westbrook Foundation board meeting on the floor below. I'd come up because his secretary had called the gallery at two and asked me to."Lu. Sit."He was in his office. The door was closed. He had a file open in front of him. He hadn't been at the board meeting downstairs that had ended ninety seconds ago. Theron Vance had been there in his absence."Daddy. What.""Caine Voss came to my office at one-fifteen."I sat down."He asked to discuss the Pinnacle Asset Group structure. He said he had questions a Marchetti shareholder might want answered.""Caine isn't a Marchetti shareholder.""No. He is, however, a Voss family member with a financial position in a Marchetti subsidiary through a shell company. He is standing to ask. He came to me because he wanted me to ask Atlas. He knew Atlas was in Florence.""What did you tell him?""I told him I had no interest in the questions
"Let them wonder."I said it at the kitchen island at seven on Monday morning. Atlas had been waiting since I'd come into the kitchen at six-fifteen. He hadn't asked me what I wanted to do. He'd let me have the time."You're sure.""I'm sure.""The Marchetti PR team wants to issue a denial by ten."
"Ms. Sinclair."Theron Vance was at the table on the eastern side of the Marchetti Foundation cocktail reception. He'd been there for ten minutes. He hadn't moved. He had a glass of water in his hand he wasn't drinking. He was waiting for Margot to come to him.Margot came to him.She'd worn the gr
"Mrs. Marchetti."Theron was at the elevator on the forty-seventh floor at eight forty-five Friday morning. He was in a charcoal suit and the same expression he'd worn at the kitchen island on Sunday. He didn't extend a hand. He nodded once. He turned. I followed him down the corridor with the Pers
"You're late, cara."Cosima was at the door of the Carlyle in dark green wool. The third Wednesday of the month. The lunch that had been Cosima's and Eleanor's for forty-one years. Today there were three places set at the corner table on the eighteenth floor."I'm five minutes early.""You're forty







