MARCY: “We can stop.”
LENA: “I’m not saying never. I’m saying nobody gets to corner me into it.”
She turned toward Celeste.
LENA: “And get out of my way.”
Celeste stepped aside.
Adrian offered his hand again.
This time Lena took it only long enough to step around the examination table and pass Celeste.
Then she let go.
Outside the clinic, Adrian’s black sedan waited at the curb.
Lena walked straight past it.
ADRIAN: “Where are you going?”
LENA: “Somewhere you can explain why your brother let your aunt do this.”
ADRIAN: “There’s a coffee shop across the street.”
LENA: “Public place?”
ADRIAN: “Very.”
LENA: “Good.”
She crossed against the light without waiting for him.
Adrian followed.
Ten minutes later, Lena sat at a small table beside a fogged window with her tote between her shoes.
She refused the coffee Adrian offered to buy.
ADRIAN: “Miles showed Celeste your message Tuesday night.”
LENA: “Why?”
Adrian looked disgusted.
ADRIAN: “Panic.”
LENA: “That isn’t an answer.”
ADRIAN: “He’s been engaged for eleven months to the daughter of a man Celeste wants as a business partner. Miles thought Celeste would tell him how to contain the scandal.”
LENA: “Contain me.”
ADRIAN: “Yes.”
Lena stared through the window.
ADRIAN: “I found out at seven this morning when our finance chief called me because Celeste ordered a rush purchase of several small consumer accounts under your mother’s name.”
LENA: “Why would your finance chief care?”
ADRIAN: “Because buying seventeen thousand dollars of debt makes no sense to a shipping company.”
He slid his phone across the table.
On the screen was an internal authorization bearing Celeste’s electronic signature.
Lena read her own name.
Beneath it was a notation.
Settlement leverage.
Her throat tightened.
ADRIAN: “I confronted Miles. He told me about your message and this appointment.”
LENA: “So you came running in like you owned the building.”
ADRIAN: “Yes.”
LENA: “Don’t do that again.”
Adrian paused.
ADRIAN: “Understood.”
She pushed the phone back.
LENA: “Show me Miles.”
Adrian opened a photograph.
Lena recognized him instantly.
The same crooked smile. The same dark eyes. The same man who had sat in booth six eating lemon pie after closing and telling her he hated being treated like his last name entered rooms before he did.
She laughed once, without humor.
LENA: “He complained about his family name without telling me what it was.”
ADRIAN: “That sounds like Miles.”
LENA: “Don’t defend him.”
ADRIAN: “I’m not.”
For the next hour, Lena asked questions.
