already walked me through it. After the indictment, the discovery began, wherein the evidence that was provided to the grand jury was released to Calvin’s legal team, and then both sides had more time to investigate each other and trade their evidence. It was a long process, and in a case like this, it could take months.
“Yes,” Calvin snapped. He did not like being corrected. “Which means he thinks he’s going to find more. I don’t know what, yet, but I can’t wait. I need to be a family man. More than ever, I need to be seen as legitimate.” His hand slipped down and traced my collarbone, sending shivers of revulsion down my spine. “Think about it. A nice white wedding. Hell, we could even get you knocked up again. You could finally let me do what you’ve been avoiding for what, six months now?”
My entire body recoiled at just the idea. Never again.
“Keep your voice down!” I whispered fiercely, surprising even Calvin with my ferocity. “Olivia is here!”
“Ah, yes, Olivia…”
To my surprise, Calvin stood up completely and paced in front of me for a moment, steepling his fingers. “I almost didn’t recognize her, you know. She’s becoming a looker. And she does love her daddy, doesn’t she?”
I straightened with a mother’s innate sense of protection. “Do not even think about using her for your PR campaign, Calvin. It’s not her job to save you.”
Calvin blinked, no doubt whatsoever in his eyes. “Try me, princess. She means nothing to me. Never has.”
I wanted to hit him. To take the open bottle of wine on the table and smash it over his shiny head and watch him fall to the ground for even suggesting what I thought he meant.
Still, I hadn’t gotten through the last ten years without knowing how to acquiesce when I had to. How to say the things that needed to be said simply for survival. To buy myself—and my daughter—some time.
“Okay,” I said. “I will think about it.”
“When?”
I stirred. “After this—this w-weekend, all right? I’m taking Olivia to Southampton to visit Mother. Get out of your hair. And when we get back, I’ll have an answer.”
He could have said no. He could have slammed me against the table as he sometimes did when I stuttered like this.
But instead, Calvin’s face spread into a wide, sweaty smile.
Maybe at the thought of being alone. Or maybe because he knew he already had me.
“All right, Mrs. Gardner. You have a deal. And when you get back, I expect a response. Do you understand?”
His threat was explicit. If he was going down, he would bring me with him.
“I’m not Eric and Jane,” I said quietly. “I’ve never liked a show. I’m not the type to be the center of attention. You have always known this about me.”
“No, you’re just the type to tease,” he sneered.
Violence flashed through his eyes, and I could see the idea of teaching me the price of my supposed coquetry cross his mind.
“Sunday,” he said, then turned back to his vodka, like I wasn’t even there.
Chapter Fourteen
“Do you think Grandma will be there?”
I turned away from the Escalade’s tinted window, through which I was watching as the smaller roads off Montauk Highway gradually gave way to the long, isolated entrance to my family’s estate. Over the ridge, tall grass waved merrily from the dunes, while the trees to the east masked deep green fields and the stable.
“Hello, darling, you woke,” I said to my daughter. “Don’t let her hear you call her that.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. Grandmamá.”
Olivia yawned and stretched her arms toward the ceiling, and I was struck again by how much she had grown over the last year, though she was still small for her age. Maybe that actually made the extra half inch or so look like even more.
“I expect she’ll be there,” I replied. “It is her house, after all. Or it will be eventually.”
Despite the fact that my grandmother’s will was still in probate and probably would be for another year (or longer, if Calvin successfully undermined it), Mother had moved right into the grand estate she’d inherited last November. Neither Eric, who paid the bills, nor the executor, who was technically in charge, seemed to mind, and Mother seemed content to morph into one of the eccentric old people who live year-round in their empty mansions, drinking too much gin and talking to the lawn ornaments.
“But it’s Uncle Eric and Aunt Jane’s party,” Olivia protested in that way small children argue