"I worked for my father's office. Constituency management, fundraising, communications. I was being groomed for a career in politics." She pauses, takes a sip of water. She hasn't touched the wine. "That ended when the investigation began."
"You were implicated."
"I was photographed. There's a difference, just not to the press." A flicker of annoyance crosses her face and tells me everything I need to know about how she feels about the subject. She is pissed, but resigned to the way things work.
Interesting.
"Were you involved?"
She turns to face me fully, and her eyes are the color of expensive whiskey, warm and deep and absolutely clear. "No. I was not involved in my father's corruption. I attended dinners because I was his daughter and he told me to attend dinners. I shook hands because I was told to shake hands. I smiled for photographs because that is what politicians' daughters do. And when it all fell apart, no one asked me what I knew. They decided what I knew and printed it."
I believe her. This surprises me, because I don’t believe people easily. Trust is a structural weakness in my profession, a crack that water gets into and freezes and expands until thefoundation splits. But there is something about the way Claudia Hartley tells the truth that makes it recognizable. She doesn't soften it. She doesn't plead. She states it and lets it stand.
"Your father," I say. "Where is he now?"
"Under investigation. Awaiting trial. Hiding out in a rented apartment and drinking himself toward an early verdict."
"And your mother?"
"With her sister. She's pretending the last twenty-five years didn't happen. She's quite good at it."
"You're alone."
A shadow passes through her eyes. She swallows hard and I follow the motion down her throat. "I'm here," she says.
The dinner continues around us. Volody is charming the redhead with an anecdote that makes her laugh behind her hand. Two chairs down, an older man is speaking earnestly to one of the brunettes about property in Montenegro. The choreography of transaction plays out in real time, and none of it touches us.
"After dinner," I say, "there are private meetings. Negotiations. The broker will present formal offers."
"I know."
My mouth tilts up in what passes for a smug grin.Of course she knows. "You will not be part of that process."
Her expression tightens, barely perceptible. "Why not?"
"Because you will not be bid on by other men. Because you approached me directly, and that means you are mine to negotiate with. Privately."
The wordmineleaves my mouth before I've fully considered it. It sits in the air between us, heavier than I intended, and I watch Claudia's reaction with careful attention.
She doesn't flinch. She doesn't blush. She holds my gaze and I watch as her pupils blow, belying her attraction. That’s when I know she planned every part of this evening.
We were playing a game of chess and I didn’t even know until I called check.
"Then let's negotiate," she says.
Rovin
I take her to a study on the second floor. The room is paneled in dark wood, the shelves lined with leather-bound volumes that have never been read and a desk that gleams with the patina of age and careful maintenance. Two leather armchairs face each other across a low table. A bottle of cognac sits on a tray with two glasses.
I don't pour. Neither does she.
Claudia sits in the chair across from me with her ankles crossed and her hands folded in her lap, and I am struck, not for the first time tonight, by the strangeness of this situation. In three years of attending these dinners, no woman has ever walked up to me and announced her intentions. No woman has ever told me, in plain language, why she wanted me. No woman has ever sat across from me without a broker between us and treated the conversation as an equal exchange.
For some insane reason that’s beyond my comprehension, it feels right.
"I’ll be direct," I say. "What you are proposing is permanent. Marriage in my family is not a contract that can be renegotiated. It is a commitment enforced by loyalty, expectation, and, if necessary, less pleasant mechanisms. There is no divorce. There is no separation. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
