Chapter 5
Laura did not know I intended to name her.
That mattered.
I had not decided officially.
I had only been considering it.
Margaret somehow knew.
“How?”
Laura stared at me.
“I didn’t.”
David looked confused too.
I looked at Margaret.
She smiled faintly.
“People talk.”
No.
Too easy.
Only three people knew.
My security chief.
My oldest adviser.
And my sister.
Margaret.
I had told her because I wanted her opinion.
That mistake tasted bitter now.
I remembered the conversation.
“Laura is capable,” she said.
Calm.
Supportive.
Then:
“And David?”
I thought she was asking whether he would mind.
Now I understood.
She was calculating where blood moved next.
“What did you do after I told you?”
She folded her arms.
“Nothing.”
I lifted her notebook.
“Six months of nothing?”
Her face hardened.
“I was protecting the family.”
“From Laura?”
“From sentiment.”
Again.
Always sentiment.
“You think adoption makes Laura unfit.”
“I think a woman who puts a stranger’s child equal to her own son demonstrates poor judgment.”
Laura stood.
Enough.
“She is not a stranger.”
Margaret looked at her.
“She was when you brought her home.”
Laura’s face changed.
I stepped between them before words became something worse.
“Why did you adopt Emma?”
I knew parts.
Not all.
Laura looked at the child sleeping in the adjoining sitting room.
“Her mother was my friend.”
Yes.
Rachel Walsh.
A nurse at one of our family clinics.
Killed in a winter highway accident.
Emma’s father already dead before she was born.
No relatives able to take her.
Laura did.
Simple.
Except Margaret hated simplicity when it crossed bloodlines.
Then David spoke.
“She saved me.”
We both looked at him.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“Rachel.”
Laura stared.
David continued.
“The night Dad died.”
My jaw tightened.
Michael died during a shooting at one of our family restaurants.
David was eleven.
Rachel had been there.
“She got me into the kitchen freezer room.”
Laura covered her mouth.
David’s eyes filled.
“She stayed with me until the shooting stopped.”
I had known a nurse protected him.
I never knew it was Emma’s mother.
David looked at Margaret.
“So her mom saved me.”
Silence.
“And you kicked Emma’s chair away because she doesn’t have our blood.”
May you like
Margaret’s face changed.
For the first time, her argument looked small even to herself.
