Chapter 17 - The Reckoning in the Library
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When Graham returned to the estate an hour later, the rain had slowed to a dreary grey mist.
He walked up the stairs with slow, heavy steps, like a condemned man walking toward the gallows.
I was sitting in the library downstairs, wearing my tailored rain trench coat, my leather travel bag sitting on the floor beside my feet. My driver was waiting in a car at the bottom of the driveway.
Graham walked into the room and stopped five feet away. He was calm now, the chaotic fury drained out of him, leaving behind a hollowed shell of a man who looked ready to accept his sentence.
"Tell me what you heard that night," Graham whispered softly. "Word for word. I need to hear you say it."
I looked up from my lap. My voice didn't shake. I didn't yell. I simply delivered the truth with the cold clarity of a court reporter reading a transcript.
"'She still thinks I wear this for her,'" I quoted, staring directly into his eyes. "'It’s good for business. People trust a married man more than they trust a powerful one. Marriage is the cheapest investment a man can make. Exactly.'"
Graham closed his eyes. A single tear tracked through the grime on his cheek.
"I spent seven months looking for your father's watch, Graham," I told him, standing up. "I traced old auction records across three states. I called collectors in Europe. I paid to have every tiny gear restored because I wanted to give you back a piece of your childhood."
"Elena..."
"And while I was holding that box behind the door," I continued, "I watched you turn the gold band on your finger and explain to three drunk men why I was nothing more than a useful tax write-off."
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Graham dropped to his knees right there on the Persian rug in the library.
"I was wrong," he choked out, pressing his forehead against the floorboards at my feet. "I was so stupid, Elena. I was trying to be the big man... I was trying to act like nothing could hurt me... Please... don't leave me in this empty house."
