Chapter 17
Never in Breach
Now, standing in the hotel lobby years later, I finally understood the cruelty of that memory.
Charles had once looked at the contract and called it a chain.
Tonight, he had picked up that same chain and reminded me whose hand held the other end.
“Are you really going to use it?” I asked.
Charles’s expression stiffened.
His eyes were dark beneath the lobby lights.
“I only reminded you it exists.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He looked away.
For one brief moment, I saw it.
Shame.
Small.
Quickly buried.
Then his face hardened again.
“You forced my hand.”
I almost laughed.
My throat hurt too much.
I remembered another night.
The night after Mrs Yale died in that car crash and the boardroom sharks began circling.
Charles’s father had already been gone
