Chapter 4
“That’s becoming a very irritating phrase.”
“Then I’ll try another.”
He faced me.
“Your mother did not like me at first.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She thought I was arrogant.”
“Also sounds like her.”
“She was correct.”
I folded my arms.
“How well did you know her?”
“Well enough that she once threw a procurement report at me.”
My mouth fell open.
He almost smiled.
“It missed.”
“She never missed.”
“I moved.”
For the first time in days, I laughed properly.
Then his expression changed.
“Your mother and I became friends.”
The word felt unexpectedly significant.
“Why did she never mention you?”
“She probably did.”
“She didn’t.”
“Not by name?”
I shook my head.
Alexander looked thoughtful.
“Perhaps because of what happened later.”
“What happened?”
He was silent for a moment.
“My father tried to purchase Carter Manufacturing.”
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Thirteen years ago.”
I would have been twenty-one.
My mother had still been alive.
“She refused?”
“Immediately.”
“Then what?”
“My father tried another route.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of route?”
“Buying supplier contracts. Pressuring lenders. Making the company less comfortable to own.”
It sounded painfully familiar.
“Mason did the same thing.”
“Not as aggressively. But yes.”
I looked away.
History hadn’t repeated exactly.
But it had rhymed.
“What did you do?”
“I told your mother what was happening.”
I turned back.
“Against your father’s interests?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she was right.”
“About what?”
“That a business is not merely an asset because someone rich enough wishes to acquire it.”
For a long moment neither of us spoke.
“Did your father know you warned her?”
“Eventually.”
“Is that why you left the family company?”
“It contributed.”
The pieces of Alexander Whitmore rearranged themselves in my mind.
Not into something perfect.
Just into something more complicated.
A man could have a frightening reputation and still make decent choices.
A man could love you and still make selfish ones.
The world would have been easier if people were only one thing.
They weren’t.
That evening, I told Dad what Alexander had revealed.
Dad went silent.
“You knew,” I said.
He nodded slowly.
“Your mother made me promise not to involve you.”
“In what?”
“Old arguments.”
“Dad, everyone keeps protecting me from information and then acting surprised when I don’t know anything.”
He winced.
“You’re right.”
“What else?”
He stood.
“Come with me.”
We drove to the house.
Dad led me downstairs into the basement, past shelves of Christmas decorations and boxes of my mother’s books.
Behind an old cabinet stood a small fireproof safe.
I’d seen it my entire childhood.
I had never known the combination.
Dad opened it.
Inside were property records, insurance documents, my parents’ marriage certificate, and several envelopes.
He removed one.
My name was written across the front in my mother’s handwriting.
Emily.
My throat tightened.
“When did she write this?”
“A few weeks before she died.”
I looked at him sharply.
“She wasn’t expecting to die.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Your mother wrote letters when she was worried.”
He gave a sad smile.
“She believed paper made fear less powerful.”
I turned the envelope over.
On the back, beneath the flap, she had written another sentence.
Open this only if the Whitmores ever come for Carter again.
My hands began to shake.
Dad stepped closer.
“I never opened it.”
“You waited thirteen years?”
“She addressed it to you.”
I slid one finger beneath the flap.
Inside were four handwritten pages.
The first line made me sit down.
Emily, if you are reading this, then somebody in the Whitmore family has probably decided our company would be easier to own than to respect.
May you like
Below it, my mother had written:
Before you decide who to trust, you need to know what Alexander Whitmore once gave up to protect this family—and what I promised him in return.
