Chapter 3
Miles Grant had been with me sixteen years.
Long enough to know how I drink coffee.
Long enough to know which lie I tolerate and which one I end relationships over.
He had signed off on every security redesign in the hotel.
Including the plans that somehow forgot an underground passage.
Interesting.
I called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Estelle said:
“This is getting ridiculous.”
I turned.
“Your security director burned a bakery.”
“He thought it was empty.”
There.
The ballroom stopped breathing.
I stared at her.
She realized what she had said.
Too late.
“You knew.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“You just told me what Nolan thought.”
“I assumed.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“People assume weather.”
My voice stayed low.
“They do not assume the internal expectations of arsonists.”
Her eyes filled.
Agnes looked down.
I hated that.
The woman who once fed me half a loaf because I had not eaten in two days was now sitting at my hotel opening while my fiancée explained why setting fire to her life had been a scheduling problem.
“Why was the bakery supposed to be empty?”
Estelle answered slowly.
“Because Agnes had been invited here.”
Of course.
The banquet invitation itself had been part of the plan.
Get Agnes out.
Burn the bakery.
Seal the passage.
Return later to rubble.
Simple.
Except Agnes went back inside before Ivy arrived.
Why?
She had forgotten the recipe book.
The one object she refused to lose.
Serena—no.
Estelle.
Different story.
Stay in this one.
I kept my eyes on Estelle.
“What was supposed to happen to the passage?”
“Collapse.”
“Why?”
Silence.
“Estelle.”
Her composure finally cracked.
“Because Julian said Miles was compromised.”
That surprised me.
“What does that mean?”
She rubbed her fingers together.
A nervous habit.
My future wife had apparently known my lieutenant was meeting people beneath my hotel.
She claimed Julian discovered it during construction.
Miles had been hosting private gatherings in the old passage.
Capos.
Suppliers.
Families whose contracts I had terminated.
People angry about how I reorganized Kingsley hospitality.
Estelle said she confronted Julian.
Not me.
Why?
Because Julian convinced her the meetings were harmless unless exposed publicly.
He suggested closing the passage quietly.
Then nobody would know.
I looked at her.
“You were protecting Miles from me?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
She did not answer.
That was when I understood.
She was protecting the wedding.
Twelve days.
One alliance.
One hotel.
One beautiful future.
Truth could wait until after photographs.
That was her calculation.
Then Rafe returned.
“Miles is gone.”
Of course.
“But his office isn’t.”
May you like
Good.
We went upstairs.
