Chapter 52 Malena
Malena
President Packham’s office was always neatly kept—books stacked on the shelves, never a painting or framed diploma askew. On Monday morning, when I got back to campus, the authentication report came through. We were right.
Wrapped in a deep red peacoat, she stood looking out the multi-paned window at the center of the room. From this viewpoint, I could see the quad still blanketed in the thin layer of snow that’d fallen over the weekend.
I cleared my throat and knocked on the doorframe.
“Malena.” She looked over her shoulder then turned around. “I was just leaving, can this wait?”
“No.” I crossed the room to her desk but didn’t sit down. “I think you need to hear this.”
She blinked in surprise. “Okay.”
“I…” I twisted my fingers, feeling my pulse beat in every one of them. “I wanted to let you know that I won’t be publishing that article Professor Fulton told you about in the Winchester Daily News.”
“Great,” she said tightly. “Is that all, Malena? I have a busy—”
“I can’t publish it there because the feature turned investigative, and we stumbled on what looks like a forged Van Holden painting that was being sold through the Modiste Gallery in Manhattan.” There. I said it.
She froze. “Malena…”
My nerves wore down, and that feeling of telling a story took over.
“We had a piece go through a rigorous authentication process and the report came back this morning, confirming it’s a fraud.
The buyer won’t have to pay for the piece, but the seller…
well, I’m guessing the gallery has to report the seller to the FBI. ”
Her face paled. “Why are you here?”
“You gave me a warning. I’m only returning the favor. The article with all of our findings comes out tomorrow morning in the New York Herald.”
She’d looked out for me over the years; maybe it was my own mommy issues, but I felt like I owed her this much.
“I don’t know what you think you know,” she stated calmly, folding her hands in front of her, stoic as always, “but I’m sure there are things you missed.”
“I know everything. Your grandparents, the Carrington money, and the house off High Street. They made their money in shipping, right?” I asked genuinely.
Maybe I wanted to give her a chance to explain because I knew how tricky the truth could be; I used to be a liar.
“I’m not wearing a wire or anything. I just…
I know how nice it feels to finally stop lying. ”
A faint smile wisped across her face. “I hope this means you’re considering a path outside of medicine. Because I can’t help but be a little proud.”
“I am.” I took a few more steps forward until I was lined up with her at the window. “What happened? I mean, it doesn’t matter what you tell me now…”
Lines formed and vanished on her forehead. A few beats of silence passed.
“I grew up surrounded by art. My grandmother taught me to paint, she told me that we were artists by blood but shipping magnates by trade. Her father painted with ‘the greats.’” She paused here to hook her fingers into air quotes, then huffed a laugh.
I was itching to ask her who the greats were, but I knew it was neither the time nor place.
“She told me she lived like a princess when she was young.” She turned and opened her desk drawer, revealing a familiar brass key under its false bottom.
“I found this key in my grandmother’s things after she died, apparently it was her brothers’.
They were Carringtons. She married Victor Packham, one of the wealthiest men in London.
He mismanaged both of their fortunes, which was why, as you probably know, the Packhams never made Scroll & Ivy history. ”
“Would you have punished me in order to stop this from coming out?” I asked.
She quirked a brow. “Yes.”
“So I did the right thing,” I told myself under my breath.
“Depends on who you ask. Life may seem simple in college, but the real world is brushed with varying shades of gray.” She buttoned up her jacket and tied the two tassels resolutely.
She knocked on the hardwood desk as she walked past it, then stopped at the threshold.
“But it’s hard to live one life when you know you could have lived another. ”
She left with that eerie warning to a trap I narrowly missed myself.
If I ever needed proof that I made the right move in taking control over my own life, she was the living embodiment. I didn’t want to spend my future weighed down with the ghost of a life I could have lived.
A few moments later, I made my way out of Packham’s office, where a set of blue eyes awaited me.
That gorgeous, tingle-inducing half smile pushed up one cheek. “Holmes.”
Delight filled me. “What are you doing here?”
When I returned to campus last night, Cora was back from San Francisco too, and I filled her in on everything she’d missed. We spent the night watching movies, and I needed that time with her, but I planned on catching up with Conrad this evening.
“I got the same email from Barrett.” Conrad stood from one of the leather chairs outside of Packham’s office. “I knew you’d come here. I figured I’d wait for you to say whatever you needed to.”
“So you followed me?”
“Always.” He closed the few steps of space between us. “You have a tendency of running right into trouble.”
“I do,” I admitted. “It ran me right into you.”
“I never said I didn’t love it.” He looped both arms around me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I will be.”
“Wanna get some lunch? Isha and Lucy are talking winter break plans.”
It was sweet—and I could definitely see this being his way of trying to make me feel safe and included, since home wasn’t an option right now.
“Sure, but I should warn you, I already decided I’m going to California with Cora for winter break.”
He pressed a kiss on my head and nodded in the direction of the exit. “Then I should warn you, Isha has a way of negotiating that makes you agree to things without realizing it.”
I smiled and leaned my head on his shoulder.
Today was a little easier than yesterday, and I hoped the trend would continue, because the path forward was daunting, but it was worth it.