Page 1 of Power Play

Prologue

Charm

My mother caught the loose strand of hair before I reached the front door.

“Charmagne, hold still.”

Her heels clicked across the marble foyer while I tightened my grip on my drill bag and watched the grandfather clock slide another minute closer to seven. Coach had warned us that anyone late to Saturday rehearsal would run stairs before practice, and I was already one correction away from crying in front of the entire team.

“I fixed it twice,” I said as she stepped behind me.

“And it came loose twice.”

Her fingers moved through the curls near my temple, separating and smoothing them until every strand disappeared beneath the white ribbon tied around my ponytail. She worked carefully, without pulling, her attention fixed on my reflection in the tall mirror beside the staircase.

The uniform had looked better in my bedroom.

Under the foyer chandelier, the navy skirt seemed shorter, the white shell tighter, and the strip of bare skin above my waistband much more noticeable. I resisted the urge to tug the fabric down. My mother noticed nervous hands almost as quickly as she noticed crooked seams.

“There.” She pressed her palm lightly over the top of my head. “That’s much cleaner.”

“Thank you.”

Her gaze lowered to my face, and the faint crease between her brows returned. She reached into the pocket of her cardigan, removed a folded tissue, and touched it beneath my cheekbone.

“Your blush is brighter than it was upstairs.”

“It’s the same blush.”

“The light is different down here.”

She passed me the tissue, and I dabbed at both cheeks while she watched. Pink dust stained the white paper.

“I thought the color looked pretty.”

“It is pretty, sweetheart. It simply competes with the uniform.”

The correction arrived inside a smile so gentle that objecting would’ve made me look unreasonable. My mother never told me I looked bad. She adjusted, softened, suggested, and refined until the thing she disliked disappeared, then praised me for understanding. I folded the tissue around the evidence and tucked it into my bag.

My father’s voice carried from his study, followed by the lower murmur of another man responding through the speakerphone. He’d been working since before sunrise, shifting between conversations with New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles while the Michigan office waited for Monday morning. Harlen Financial Investments and Holdings began with my grandfather and expanded beneath my father until its name appeared on glass towers in every major city where wealthy people needed someone wealthier to tell them what to do with their money.

We moved to Kimball Falls when I was twelve so he could open the Detroit office. The arrangement was supposed to last one year.

Charlie died before that year ended.

My brother’s grave was six miles from our house, and my father never spoke about moving again. Kimball Falls stopped being a temporary assignment and became the place where my parents preserved the last version of our family that still contained him.

The study door opened. My father emerged with his phone pressed to his ear and paused when he saw me beside my mother. His attention moved over my uniform, hair, shoes, and bag in one swift inspection.

“Practice?”

“Yes.”

“You reviewed for Monday’s algebra quiz?”

“I studied last night.”

“How long?”