Chapter 5
Meredith requested her own meeting.
She did not bring Harlan.
She brought an employment attorney.
That told Elisa more than an apology would have.
They met in a glass conference room at D’Angelo House after business hours.
Meredith looked different without gala makeup.
Younger.
More exhausted.
“I’m not asking you to forgive anything,” she said.
“Good.”
Meredith accepted that.
The affair had begun fourteen months earlier after a publishing conference in Boston.
Harlan told Meredith his marriage had become emotionally distant.
Meredith knew Elisa.
She knew that was not permission.
She continued anyway.
Dorothea discovered them six months later.
Instead of exposing Harlan, she began inviting Meredith to the Westchester house under the excuse of editorial meetings.
“Why?”
Meredith looked embarrassed.
“She liked me.”
Elisa almost laughed.
“Of course she did.”
“She thought Harlan had married beneath himself emotionally.”
Elisa stared.
“Into my family?”
“She meant you were spoiled.”
There it was.
Dorothea’s contempt had never depended on reality.
She needed Elisa diminished so Harlan could feel large.
Meredith confirmed the late-night visits.
Dorothea sometimes made Elisa serve wine or coffee deliberately.
“She wanted you to know I was important without knowing why.”
Elisa swallowed.
That cruelty was almost worse than the affair.
Then she asked about Marlowe.
Meredith’s expression changed.
“I recommended them.”
“Why?”
“Harlan asked me to.”
“Did you receive money?”
“No.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
Elisa watched her.
Meredith finally said:
“I knew the commissions were high.”
“Why approve them?”
“Harlan said Marlowe was helping place books in markets our normal agents couldn’t reach.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Meredith looked toward her attorney.
The attorney nodded once.
Meredith opened her bag and removed a folder.
Inside were emails she had preserved after becoming nervous.
Harlan had repeatedly instructed her not to include Rebecca on certain rights negotiations.
One line appeared three times.
Keep finance out until terms are locked.
Elisa looked up.
“Why save these?”
“Because three months ago I asked Harlan who owned Marlowe.”
“What did he say?”
“That I didn’t need to know.”
“And?”
“I checked.”
Meredith pushed over a corporate-registration printout.
Marlowe’s public ownership ran through a holding company.
May you like
The holding company’s registered manager was not Harlan.
It was Dorothea Pierce.
