The Morning After
1515 Words
Nora did not go back.
She had told herself she would not and for once in her life where Ethan Blackwood was concerned she kept that promise. She went home, checked on Lily, sat on the edge of her bed in the dark and stayed there until the anger settled into something quieter and more dangerous.
Not rage. Rage burned out quickly.
This was something colder. Something that I thought clearly.
He had used her as bait.
He had stood in her office and handed her that USB drive with those steady eyes and that carefully measured voice and let her believe he was being honest with her. Let her believe he was finally, after three years, choosing to trust her with the truth.
And the whole time it had been a trap. Not for her. But she had been the instrument of it without her knowledge or her consent.
She thought about the way her chest had cracked open slightly when he said he was not asking her to fix anything. The way she had almost, for one unguarded moment, believed that something real was beginning to happen between them.
She had been manipulated. Again. By a different method and for a different reason but the result was the same.
Ethan Blackwood had made a decision that affected her without consulting her.
Just like he always had.
She lay down on her bed fully dressed and stared at the ceiling and made herself a promise.
She was not going to let him do it again.
The next morning she walked into the office like nothing had happened.
That was the only power she had and she was going to use every last drop of it. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled. She would not give anyone in that office the pleasure of watching her fall apart.
She sat at her desk, opened the Henderson file, and worked.
Marcus arrived at half past eight with coffee and took one look at her face.
"Bad night?" he asked.
"Fine night," she said without looking up.
He sat on the edge of the desk across from hers and lowered his voice. "Ethan came in at six this morning. He has been in his office with his lawyer since then. Clara has cancelled all his external meetings for the day."
Nora kept her eyes on the file. "That has nothing to do with me."
"Nora."
"Marcus."
He was quiet for a moment. She could feel him watching her with that careful concern she had come to rely on without meaning to.
"Whatever happened," he said gently, "you do not have to handle it alone."
She looked up at him then. This warm uncomplicated man who asked nothing complicated of her and offered everything straightforward.
"I know," she said. And she meant it.
He nodded and stood up. "I will be at my desk if you need me."
She watched him walk away and felt the particular ache of knowing that the right person at the wrong time was still the wrong time.
At eleven o'clock Clara appeared at her desk.
"Mr. Blackwood would like to see you."
"Tell him I am busy."
Clara blinked. In two years at this company nobody had ever told Clara to tell Ethan Blackwood they were busy. Clara opened her mouth and closed it again.
"Tell him I am in the middle of the Henderson deliverable and I will come when I am done," Nora said pleasantly. "He can wait."
Clara walked away looking like a woman who had just witnessed something historic.
Nora went back to the Henderson file.
She made him wait forty five minutes.
When she finally walked into his office Ethan was standing at the window the way he always stood when he was working something through. His lawyer was gone. The room was empty except for the two of them.
He turned when she entered.
She sat down in the chair across from his desk without being invited to and crossed her legs and looked at him with an expression that gave absolutely nothing away.
"You wanted to see me," she said.
He looked at her for a moment. Something moved in his eyes when he registered the forty five minute wait but he said nothing about it.
"I owe you an apology," he said.
"Yes you do."
"I should have told you what the drive was for before I gave it to you. I made a decision that involved you without your knowledge and that was wrong."
"Yes it was."
He held her gaze. "I am sorry Nora."
She looked at him steadily. "I believe that you are. I also believe that you will do it again the next time you decide that protecting people is more important than respecting them. Because that is who you are Ethan. You have always chosen to protect over trusting. And every time you do it you take away someone else's choice."
He said nothing. There was nothing to argue with because she was right and they both knew it.
"Henderson called me this morning," he said after a moment. "He has reviewed Helen's documentation. My mother's case is not as strong as she believes. But it is not nothing either. She has resources and she is willing to use them."
"I know."
"Henderson wants to meet with you. He needs to understand the full picture of Lily's situation before he can advise us properly."
Nora noted the word us but let it pass.
"When?" she asked.
"Today if possible. He can come here at two."
She thought about Lily at daycare. About Diana somewhere in this city making phone calls to lawyers and building a case out of nothing.
"Fine," she said. "Two o clock."
She stood up to leave.
"There is something else," Ethan said.
She stopped.
"Helen Voss did not come to you by accident," he said. "I sent her."
The room went very quiet.
Nora turned around slowly.
"You sent her," she repeated.
"I have known about the forged document for eight months. I found it in my mother's files when I was reviewing the company's legal history after she stepped back from the board. I needed you to know the truth but I could not be the one to tell you. You would not have believed me."
Nora stared at him.
"So you sent someone else to tell me," she said quietly. "You arranged the coffee shop. You arranged Helen. You arranged the whole thing."
"Yes."
"Because you decided that was the best way to handle it."
He met her eyes without flinching. "Yes."
She laughed. It came out soft and without humour.
"You just apologised for making decisions without consulting me," she said. "And in the same conversation you told me you did it again."
He opened his mouth.
"Do not," she said quietly. "Do not explain it. Do not justify it. Just hear what I am saying." She looked at him with something that was not quite anger and not quite sadness and was somehow more powerful than both. "Every time you decide you know better than me what I can handle, you make me smaller. And I have spent three years making myself bigger. I will not let you undo that. Not even with good intentions."
He was completely still.
She held his gaze for one long moment.
Then she walked out.
In the corridor she kept her pace steady and her head up and did not let herself feel anything until she reached the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
She stood at the sink and looked at her own reflection.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She pulled it out. Unknown number. Different from Helen's. Different from the mysterious text.
She answered.
A man's voice. Smooth, professional, completely unfamiliar.
"Miss Hayes. My name is Richard Cole. I am calling on behalf of a client who has significant interest in the Blackwood family matter." A pause. "My client has information that could end Diana Blackwood's custody case before it begins. Information she does not know exists." Another pause. "But my client's cooperation comes with a condition."
Nora looked at her reflection in the mirror.
"What condition?" she asked carefully.
"My client wants something from Ethan Blackwood in return," the man said. "Something only you can convince him to give."
The bathroom was completely silent.
"Who is your client?" Nora asked.
A long pause.
"Someone who was destroyed by the Blackwood family long before you were," the man said quietly. "Someone who has been waiting a very long time for the right moment."
The call ended.
Nora stood alone in the bathroom with her phone in her hand and the sound of her own breathing filling the silence.
There was someone else out there. Someone with a history with the Blackwood family she knew nothing about. Someone who needed her as a bridge to Ethan.
And somehow she was standing in the middle of a war that had started long before she ever walked into that office.
- Writer
