Chapter 6 6

The brush moved in small circles, restoring what time had damaged.

Evia sat in her studio, surrounded by canvases in various states of decay and resurrection. The Renaissance Madonna before her had survived four centuries, two wars, and a fire in a Venetian palazzo. The damage to her own life felt comparable.

The package arrived without announcement. The housekeeper left it on the table by the door, a plain envelope, international courier, no return address. Evia set down her brush. Wiped her hands on her apron. Opened it.

The letterhead was Swiss. The clinic's name discreet, ungoogleable, accessible only to those who already knew it existed. She unfolded the single sheet.

HCG positive. Sixteen weeks gestation. Estimated conception date: mid-August.

Evia's fingers tightened. The paper creased. She looked at the words, the clinical confirmation of a biological impossibility, and a cold, sharp smile touched her lips. A fraud. So clumsy, yet so potentially lethal. They thought this was their checkmate, but they didn't realize they were playing on the wrong board entirely. August. The month Frederic had claimed a sailing regatta in Newport. The month he'd spent, she now knew, installing Penelope in the SoHo penthouse.

Her phone rang. Unknown number. Local area code.

She answered. Activated recording. Said nothing.

"Mrs. McLaughlin." The voice was familiar. Transformed. The careful diction of the scholarship recipient replaced by something harder, more urban, more triumphant. "Or should I say, soon-to-be-ex Mrs. McLaughlin?"

"Penelope." Evia kept her voice flat. "How did you get this number?"

"Frederic gave it to me." A laugh, bright and sharp. "He gives me everything now. Did you get my little gift? The proof of what you could never do?"

Evia looked at the paper. At the numbers. At the lie that would destroy everything, or nothing, depending on what she chose to reveal.

"I got it."

"He cried, you know." Penelope's voice dropped, intimate, vicious. "When he saw the ultrasound. He said finally. Finally, an heir. A real McLaughlin." She paused. "Not like your empty, useless-"

"Is there a point to this call?" Evia's voice didn't change. She might have been discussing shipping arrangements. "I'm quite busy."

The silence stretched. Penelope had expected tears. Screaming. Something she could record, replay, use.

"I want you to leave him." The demand came out shrill, less controlled. "File for divorce. Quietly. No scenes. No demands. Just-go away. Disappear."

"And if I don't?"

"I'll tell the press everything. How you bullied me. Threatened me. Used your foundation power to destroy a pregnant woman's livelihood." Penelope's breath came faster. "I'll say you knew about us all along. That you encouraged it. That you're some kind of-of-"

"Of what?" Evia picked up her brush. Examined the bristles. "Be specific, Penelope. If you're going to destroy me, you should at least be articulate about it."

Another silence. Longer. Then, softer, dangerous: "He doesn't love you. He never did. You're a joke. A placeholder. A barren-"

"Congratulations on your pregnancy." Evia's voice cut through the tirade like a blade through silk. "I sincerely hope the delivery goes smoothly. Goodbye."

She ended the call. Saved the recording. Uploaded it. Then she picked up the medical report, walked to the shredder beside her desk, and fed it through.

The machine whined. The paper disappeared into strips, then confetti, then nothing.

The door opened behind her. She didn't turn. Didn't need to. The scent reached her first-cedar, tobacco, the cold smell of money and power.

"Callum." She kept her eyes on the shredder. "Do you ever knock?"

"Not when I'm checking on investments." His footsteps crossed the room, stopped behind her. "Interesting choice of reading material."

"The foundation's business." She turned. He was closer than she'd expected, close enough to see the lines around his eyes, the gray at his temples that hadn't appeared in magazine profiles. "A former recipient. Irregularities."

"Irregularities." He repeated the word as he'd repeated it on the terrace, tasting it, finding it wanting. "Is that what we're calling it?"

Evia said nothing.

Callum moved past her, to the window, looking out at the garden where frost had killed the last roses. "I don't care about my nephew's recreational activities. I don't care about his women, his lies, his pathetic attempts at secrecy." He turned. The light caught his eyes, turned them to steel. "I care about the merger. The Asian markets. The three billion dollars in play next quarter." He stepped toward her. "And I will not allow some grasping little opportunist with a positive pregnancy test to derail it."

"You think I'm the threat?"

"I think you're the variable." He was close now, close enough that she could see the texture of his skin, the small scar above his eyebrow. "I think you've been playing a long game, Evia Conway. Collecting evidence. Building leverage. And I think you're about to make a mistake."

"Which is?"

"Overestimating your position." His hand rose, found her chin, held it as he had on the terrace. Harder this time. Less theatrical. "You have thirty days. I haven't forgotten. But if you think that tape, those recordings, whatever you've compiled-if you think that gives you power over this family, you're wrong." His thumb pressed into her jaw. "I will bury you. Under so much litigation you'll need a team of archaeologists to find your name. Do you understand?"

Evia looked up at him. At this man who controlled everything except, apparently, his own nephew's zipper. She felt his fingers on her face, the pressure, the implicit threat.

And she smiled.

"Your nephew," she said, "should learn to use a condom. Or at least to buy his mistresses' silence more effectively." She stepped back, breaking his hold. "As for my position-" She walked to her desk, picked up her phone, held it up. "I have seventeen recordings. Three video files. Financial documentation of two million dollars in untraceable transfers." She set the phone down. "I'm not the one overestimating, Callum. You are."

They stared at each other. The shredder hummed, finishing its cycle. Outside, a gardener started a leaf blower, the sound distant, mundane, absurd.

Callum's mouth curved. Not a smile. Something more complicated. "Interesting," he said. And walked out.