23. Margo
— ? —
Margo
The message arrives at breakfast.
I’m sitting at the kitchen table with Sandy, who is meticulously arranging her cereal by color (a process she claims is “very important” and “not a thing grown-ups would understand”), when my phone buzzes with an unknown number.
I almost ignore it.
Then I see the preview text: I need to speak with you. It’s about Dorothy. -Therese
My stomach drops.
“Mommy? You’re making the scary face.”
“I’m fine, baby. Just… thinking.”
“Is it a bad thought?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I stare at the message, trying to decide what to do with it.
The old Margo would have panicked. Would have spiraled into anxiety about what Therese could possibly want, what new scheme Dorothy was plotting, what fresh disaster was about to crash into our barely-rebuilt life.
The new Margo takes a breath.
“Sandy, finish your cereal. I need to go talk to Daddy.”
“But I’m not done organizing!”
“You can organize more after I come back.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I find Sebastian in his study, already dressed for the board meeting tomorrow, reviewing documents with the focused intensity I used to resent. Now I understand it better. This is how he prepares for battle.
“Hey.” I knock on the doorframe. “Can I interrupt?”
He looks up immediately, setting down his papers. “You never have to ask.”
“Old habits.” I cross to his desk and hand him my phone. “This just came. I haven’t responded.”
He reads the message, and his expression hardens.
“Therese.”
“She says she needs to talk to me. About Dorothy.”
“Why would she contact you? Why not me?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to find out by ignoring it.” I take my phone back. “I want to respond.”
“And say what?”
“That I’ll meet her. In public. Somewhere safe.” I meet his eyes. “And I want you to know about it. No secrets.”
A shift passes through his face, surprise, maybe, or admiration.
“You’re going to meet her?”
“I’m going to hear what she has to say. If Dorothy’s planning a move, we need to know about it.” I sit on the edge of his desk. “But I’m not doing it behind your back. That’s not who we are anymore.”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
Then he nods.
“Okay. But I’m coming with you.”
“Sebastian…”
“Not to interfere. Just to be there.” He stands, taking my hands. “Therese has been a complication in our marriage since before I knew she was a complication. If this is the end of that, I want to be present for it.”
“The end?”
“She reached out to you, not me. That tells me a lot.” His jaw tightens. “And if she has information about my mother’s plans, I need to hear it too.”
“What if she’s lying? What if this is another scheme?”
“Then we deal with it together.”
I search his face, looking for any sign of wavering.
There isn’t one.
“Okay,” I say. “Together.”
We meet Therese at a café near the park.
It’s the kind of place wealthy people go to be seen, all white tablecloths and organic everything and a clientele that includes at least three people I recognize from society pages. Not where I’d choose for a confrontation, but Therese selected the location and I wasn’t about to argue.
She’s already seated when we arrive, looking nothing like the polished socialite I remember from the flagship. Her hair is pulled back severely. Her makeup is minimal. She looks… tired.
“Margo.” She stands as we approach, then falters when she sees Sebastian behind me. “I didn’t realize you were bringing…”
“No secrets,” I say. “Whatever you have to tell me, you can tell both of us.”
Therese’s gaze moves between us, calculating. Then her expression shifts, resignation, maybe, or relief.
“Fair enough.” She sits back down. “Please. Join me.”
We sit across from her, Sebastian’s hand finding mine under the table.
“Thank you for coming,” Therese begins. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from.”
“That’s accurate.”
“I deserve that.” She takes a breath. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I let Dorothy use me, let her parade me in front of your husband, let her convince me your marriage was temporary and I just had to be patient.”
She looks down at her hands. “But there’s one thing I did that’s worse than the rest, and I didn’t come here just to warn you. I came to say it out loud, to the person it actually hurt.”
“Say what?” I ask.
“The night on the ship. During the maiden voyage.” Her jaw tightens. “When I took ill and Sebastian was called to my suite. When the weather turned and I begged him not to leave me, said I thought I’d have another episode.”
She makes herself hold my eyes. “None of it was real. I wasn’t ill, Margo.
There was no episode, I just put on an act.
Dorothy arranged the whole thing, the suite next to his, the timing, all of it.
I was supposed to keep him there overnight so it would look like exactly what it looked like the next morning. ”
The floor drops out from under me.
“You faked it,” I say slowly. “To make me think…”
“To make you think he’d chosen me. Yes.”
Her voice doesn’t waver, and somehow that makes it worse.
“It was Dorothy’s design. I just played my part.
I told myself it wasn’t really a lie because nothing happened between us, but I knew what the picture would do to you, and I did it anyway.
” She swallows. “He didn’t touch me. He fell asleep on the couch and left the second it was light.
He spent the whole night worrying about you.
I watched him do it. And I let you believe the opposite, because Dorothy promised me that if your marriage broke, I’d be next. ”
Beside me, Sebastian has gone very still, and I understand this is the first he’s hearing it too, the confirmation of a thing he could never prove.
“Some things you can always count on,” I say quietly, “if you set them up right.”
Therese flinches. “I said that to you. On the tender.”
“You did. It’s taken me this long to understand what you meant.”
“I’m not telling you so you’ll forgive me. There’s nothing to forgive that would matter.”
She reaches into her bag and sets a folder on the table.
“I’m telling you because I’m done being her weapon.
And because you should know she’s doing it again, right now, on a bigger scale.
The board meeting tomorrow. She’s spent months convincing people you’re unfit to lead, and she means to have you removed for good.
I took what I could before I left her orbit.
Names. Who she’s turned, how she did it. It’s all in there.”
Sebastian takes the folder, and his hand isn’t quite steady.
“Why give us this?”
Therese is quiet for a moment.
“Nothing,” she finally says. “Except the knowledge that I did one decent thing. That when I finally walked away from Dorothy’s orbit, I didn’t leave without trying to clean up some of the damage I caused.”
“Why now?”
“Because I saw the video. The speech.” She looks at me, and there’s a respect in her eyes I haven’t seen before. “And I saw you. Standing there, letting him say those things, not running away or hiding. You’re not what Dorothy always said you were.”
“What did she say I was?”
“Weak. Temporary. Someone who got lucky and didn’t deserve it.
” Therese shakes her head. “But weak women don’t stand up to billionaires in public.
Temporary women don’t rebuild marriages after everything that happened.
And women who don’t deserve their luck don’t inspire the kind of devotion I saw in his face when he looked at you. ”
Sebastian’s hand tightens around mine.
“Therese…”
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” she interrupts. “Going abroad for a while. Figuring out who I am when I’m not Dorothy Austen’s proxy.” She stands, gathering her bag. “I won’t bother you again. Either of you. This is… this is goodbye.”
She extends her hand to me.
I hesitate only a moment before shaking it.
“Thank you,” I say. “For the warning.”
“Thank you for not throwing a drink in my face. I would have deserved it.”
She turns to Sebastian.
“Take care of her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“I know.”
Therese nods once, then walks out of the café without looking back.
Sebastian and I sit in silence for a long moment.
“Well,” I finally say. “That was unexpected.”
“Extremely.”
“What do we do now?”
He looks at me, then at the folder in his hands.
“Now we fight.”
We spend the rest of the day preparing.
The house becomes a war room.
Sebastian spreads the contents of Therese’s folder across the dining table, explaining each piece to me, asking for my opinion, treating me like the partner I’ve always wanted to be.
“Most of this is smoke,” he says. “She’s been telling anyone who’ll listen that I’ve lost my grip, that the marriage proves I can’t be trusted with the company. The people she’s turned aren’t loyal to her. They’re just frightened of instability.”
“So you show them the opposite.”
“I show them a man who’s steadier than he’s been in years. Who has his life in order. Who came back on his own two feet instead of being carried in.” He glances at me. “Which is a great deal easier to prove with you sitting beside me than it would be alone.”
“The ones who are only in it out of fear, they’ll come around if you look solid?”
“Most of them. A couple are hers for good, but I don’t need every vote. I need enough of them to see that the story she’s selling isn’t true.”
We work through dinner, ordering food that goes cold while we strategize. Sandy plays in the next room, supervised by one of the staff members we’ve come to trust, and for a few hours I forget to worry about anything except the puzzle in front of us.
It’s almost… fun.
Is that strange? To find enjoyment in preparing for battle against my mother-in-law?
Maybe.
But there’s an exhilaration in working with Sebastian instead of around him. About being included instead of protected. About finally feeling like I have a seat at the table instead of waiting outside the door.
By eight o’clock, we have a plan.
By nine, we’ve rehearsed his talking points.
By ten, we’re exhausted but confident, and Sebastian suggests a detour I wasn’t expecting.
“Let’s have dinner.”