DOMINIC
"She'll be there," James said.
"I know."
"Your mother confirmed the guest list this morning. Sienna is on it."
I had already known. My mother had been building to this for three weeks — the measured comments about old family friends, the way she had started calling Sienna by her first name in conversation the way you used first names for people you considered yours. The invitation to the formal monthly family dinner at the Ashford estate had been the natural conclusion.
"How is Elena?" James asked.
"She knows," I said. "I told her."
James was quiet for a moment. "How did she take it?"
"She said okay and then she spent twenty minutes reorganising the bookshelf."
"Ah," James said.
"Yes."
The Ashford estate was forty minutes north of the city, a house that had been in the f
