MARGARET
I had rehearsed everything on the drive over.
Every word. Every point. The Carter reputation. The family's position. The optics.
I had delivered all of it and then Nicholas had walked into the kitchen and I had seen the simmering anger in his face.
Now I was sitting across from him in a study I had never been invited into and everything I had prepared was completely useless.
Nicholas looked at me coldly.
"I know about Landon Morris," he said, as if there was no time to beat around the bush.
The air left the room.
Not the room. Me.
Thirty-five years I had carried that name without anyone saying it back to me.
Not Edward. Not a single person on earth.
I had kept it the way you kept things that could destroy everything, perfectly still, in a place no one could reach.
N
