Chapter 10 #2
I keep walking. My mother’s office door is closed. I open it without knocking.
Janine looks up from behind her desk, one hand resting near a porcelain cup of tea. The office is pale, immaculate, and cold. Cream walls. Gold accents. Fresh white orchids on the credenza. My father’s portrait hangs behind her like an endorsement he can't retract.
“Sebastian,” she says, displeased. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“No, you’re not.”
The man on her screen goes quiet. I reach across the desk and press the key to end the call. His face disappears.
My mother rises slowly. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Possibly. It seems to be a family trait.”
Her mouth tightens. “If this is about the photographs, I’ve already told PR to remain neutral until we can assess Katrina’s position. The worst thing you can do is issue a denial too quickly and look defensive.”
I stare at her.
That is where her mind goes. Not Chloe. Not the babies we lost. Not the fact that another woman is currently implying she is carrying my child. Optics. Timing. Defensive posture.
“Katrina used your code to enter my house,” I say.
For the first time, something flickers across her face. It’s gone quickly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Perform innocence. I don't have the patience for it.”
Her shoulders settle back. “I have no idea what you think you know.”
“I know Katrina entered my home using your private residence code.”
Janine exhales, a small, irritated sound, as if I’ve brought her a logistical inconvenience. “She was worried.”
The words are so calm that they take a second to make sense.
I lean both hands on her desk. “About what?”
“The launch. Some contractual language. A few concerns about the way your team was handling the press after the suite photos.” She lifts her chin. “She said she needed to speak with you somewhere private. You weren't returning calls.”
“So you told her she was welcome to wait in my house.”
“She is a business partner.”
“She is a woman currently pretending to be pregnant with my child.”
Janine’s eyes sharpen. “Careful, Sebastian.”
“No. I’ve been careful for years. I’ve been measured, reasonable, and strategic. I’ve translated cruelty into concern and interference into family interest. I’ve let you call damage management by prettier names.” My voice drops. “I’m done being careful with you.”
Her face hardens. “This melodrama is exactly why I was concerned.”
“Concerned.”
“Yes, concerned. You’re allowing Chloe’s emotional instability to jeopardize everything your father built.”
“My wife’s emotional instability,” I repeat.
Janine doesn't step back. She never does when she believes she still owns the floor beneath her. “She left in the middle of a crisis. She’s refused to take your calls. She’s hiding with her sister while the press writes whatever story it wants.
A stronger woman would understand that this family requires endurance. ”
A stronger woman.
I think of Chloe sitting in hospital beds, pale and shaking, apologizing to nurses when she was the one bleeding.
I think of her smiling through Starlight Court while my mother moved her like furniture.
I think of her auditioning for a role that asks a woman to pour grief out under cheap lights and still stand afterward.
“You wouldn't recognize strength if it put your name on a building,” I say.
My mother’s eyes flash. “Do not speak to me like I’m one of your employees.”
“No. My employees have boundaries.”
“That girl has made you weak.”
“No,” I say. “Losing her is showing me I already was weak.”
Janine’s expression shifts, though not enough for anyone else to see. I see it because I was raised by it: calculation.
“Sebastian,” she says, softer now. “I understand you’re hurt.”
“You do not.”
“I understand more than you think. You wanted a family. You wanted children. Chloe couldn't give you that, and instead of facing what that means, you’re letting guilt turn you against the people trying to protect you.”
For a second, I can't move. It’s not shock; I’m past shock with her. It’s the violence of hearing my children reduced to a talking point.
“You will never,” I say carefully, “speak about our babies again.”
Her nostrils flare. “I’m speaking about reality.”
“No. You’re speaking about my wife’s body as if it failed an audit.”
Janine looks away first. Barely. A fraction. It’s enough.
“How did Katrina know?” I ask.
She turns back. “Know what?”
I step around the desk. My mother holds her ground, but her hand tightens around the back of her chair.
“How did Katrina know about the miscarriages?”
“I have no idea what Katrina knows.”
“She threw them at me in my sitting room. She knew there were three. She knew enough to use them as a weapon. We kept that private.”
“Clearly not private enough.” The words come too quickly.
I look at her, and for the first time in my life, I don't see my mother. I see an officer with access. A trustee with motive. I see a woman who’s mistaken proximity for permission for so long she no longer remembers there’s a difference.
“You gave her the code,” I say.
Janine’s face goes smooth.
“You let her into my house,” I continue. “You put her in Chloe’s room, Chloe’s life, and Chloe’s place. Then Katrina walked in and knew the most painful thing my wife and I have ever survived.”
“I did not put her in Chloe’s room.” Her voice is clipped now. “And if Katrina’s been indiscreet, that’s a separate matter.”
“Indiscreet.”
“Yes.”
“She’s staging a pregnancy rumor.”
“She’s generating speculation,” Janine says. “There’s a difference.”
I almost smile. It feels wrong on my face. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The calculation. The convenient distance between lie and implication. You always did love a room where no one had to say the ugly thing plainly.”
Her cheeks color. “You’re being absurd.”
“No. I’m being late.”
“You’ll no longer meddle in my marriage,” I say.
Her laugh is quiet and cold. “Your marriage appears to have managed its own destruction.”
“My marriage is mine. Chloe is mine to love, mine to answer to, and mine to spend the rest of my life trying to deserve if she allows it. She is not your project. She’s not your obstacle. She’s not a weak line item to be corrected by a celebrity with better market penetration.”
Janine flinches at the crudeness of the phrase, which is rich coming from a woman who’s treated my wife like a faulty investment for years.
“You’re removed from any personal decision involving me, Chloe, the residence, or access to either of us,” I continue. “Effective immediately, your codes are disabled. Your driver’s access is revoked. Your office will send anything requiring my signature through Oliver or legal.”
Her voice drops. “You don't have the authority to cut me out of this family.”
“I have the authority to cut you out of my house.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“I’ve made years of them. This is the first right thing I've done in a very long time.”
She stares at me, and for one moment, I see something like fear behind the anger. Not fear of losing me, I’m not sentimental enough today to believe that, but fear of losing influence. Fear of a door closing before she’s moved all her pieces through it.
“This will pass,” she says.
“No,” I tell her. “It won't.”
I leave before she can answer.
In the hallway, my hands are steady. That worries me less than it should.
I call Albert Leneve from the elevator. He answers on the fourth ring, his voice dry and alert. “Sebastian."
“I need information.”
“About Katrina Haviland?”
“About my mother.”
Silence. Then, more carefully, “What kind of information?”
“I want to know every legal mechanism available to remove Janine Austen from the company, the trust, the board, the residence structures, advisory committees, everything. If her name is on it, I want to know what it takes to get it off.”
Another silence, longer this time.
“That’s a significant request.”
“I’m aware.”
“It may not be simple.”
“I didn't ask for simple.”
“Sebastian,” he says, and his voice changes. He sounds less like a lawyer and more like the man who knew my father when I was young enough to believe adults had clean answers. “Are you certain you want to open that door?”
I think of Chloe’s bare hand in a community theater photograph. Katrina’s hand on her stomach. My mother saying, Chloe could not give you that, as if my wife’s grief were evidence in a case against her.
“Yes,” I say. “And I want everything documented. Quietly, for now. No warning shots.”
“Understood.”
“If there are clauses in my father’s documents that apply, find them.”
His pause is almost imperceptible. “I’ll review the full file.”
“You already know something.”
“I know your father was a cautious man.”
“My father was a suspicious man.”
“He had reason to be both.”
The elevator doors open to the private garage. I step out into the concrete chill.
“Then find the reason,” I say. “And Albert?”
“Yes?”
“I don't care what it costs me.”
He exhales softly. “People often say that before they understand the bill.”
“I understand one bill already,” I say. “I’m living in it.”
I end the call.
For a while, I stand beside my car and don't get in. Then, I get into the car, close the door, and sit in the dark with my hands on the wheel.
For the first time since Chloe walked out, I’m not waiting for the next blow to land. I’m choosing where to strike.