Chapter 6
I placed the paper flower in front of Julian.
He stared at it.
“Elsie still wants you to have this.”
His face changed.
Good.
I wanted guilt to arrive before consequence.
“She asked whether you’d be angry if she called you Dad in public.”
Julian looked away.
Vanessa stared at him.
“You made her call you Mr. Julian?”
He said nothing.
That answer repulsed even her.
I did not need to say more.
Ethan tried to drag the conversation back toward business.
“This is personal.”
I turned.
“No.”
He frowned.
“This is exactly business.”
Julian had not merely lied to a girlfriend.
He had trained his daughter to disappear in public because that improved his eligibility for a partnership.
That meant business had entered the child’s mouth.
I looked at Ethan.
“What did Cole require?”
He hesitated.
“Image.”
“Explain.”
“Vanessa’s father wanted Julian clean.”
I almost laughed.
“Clean.”
“No previous marriage drama. No child complications. No old domestic ties.”
Elsie’s existence had been classified as complication.
I looked at Julian.
“You agreed?”
He snapped:
“I never signed anything.”
That told me enough.
Not written.
Understood.
Verbal.
Cultural.
The most dangerous kinds of arrangements often live without paper because everyone involved knows exactly what is expected.
Vanessa looked furious now.
Not at Elsie.
At being used too.
“You were dating me because of my father.”
Julian looked at her.
“No.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He said nothing.
There.
She had been both relationship and access.
Maybe loved.
Also useful.
People hate discovering they were loved and leveraged at the same time because neither truth cancels the other.
I understood that better than most.
I looked at Julian.
“You used everyone.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Elsie to look unattached.”
Silence.
“Vanessa to reach Cole.”
Silence.
“Me to keep the Lombardi name behind you.”
His face tightened.
“And yourself?”
May you like
He looked at me.
“You used yourself to believe ambition was worth it.”
