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“You have a duty to this family.”
My eyes narrowed at his words and the way he left without a better explanation.
I eyed the guilt smothering Elsa’s face and turned to Lewis. “Return Senator Erickson’s call and let him know I will be attending his function tonight after all. Have the car pick me up in twenty-three minutes—after I finish my dinner.”
He glanced between me and Elsa. “Are you sure?”
I leveled him with a glare. “Do it.”
He left, and I stepped around Elsa, took a seat, and slid the cloth napkin over my lap.
I didn’t know what I’d walk in on. Elsa had no interest in my dad, and Dad had no interest in Elsa.
But something had plastered that guilt on Elsa’s face, and I’d wait for an explanation as I ate.
The ring burned a hole in my pocket as I took my first bite of lobster.
If I were being introspective, I would have asked myself why I’d told Lewis to send the last-minute RSVP before learning what had happened.
My gut instincts told me Elsa had betrayed me somehow, but every other part of me refused to believe it.
I knew this woman.
We’d studied together. Snuck alcohol onto campus and drank it on the soccer fields at night. Fucked under the bleachers during home games.
She’d agreed to move to New York with me when she realized I would have moved to Alabama to be with her.
That woman, the one who woke up early to make me breakfast and took notes for me when family called me away from school, wouldn’t betray me.
She just wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, not bothering to take a seat.
I finished off the lobster, then cut into the filet mignon, taking painstaking care to steady my movements.
She wouldn’t betray you, I assured myself.
Why else would she apologize? Dad’s presence in me asked.
Elsa stopped my utensils with a palm on my left hand. “I love you.”
My eyes cut to her hand, then shifted to her other one, where she clutched a strip of folded paper. I reached out and plucked it from her hand.
Her unrelenting grip tightened, and the paper tore at the corners as I stole it from her.
She gasped at the sound, her other hand shooting out to take the paper back from me but failing. I opened it up.
A check.
Five million dollars.
Signed by one Giovanni Romano.
He’d paid her off. To what? Leave me?
Ice-cold frost trickled into my body as I stared at her with dead eyes. “Five million dollars? Really?”
I flicked the check onto my plate. The butter from my lobster wet the edges, and she grabbed it, her eyes screaming guilt, but her hands reeking of desperation.
