The boardroom doors were already closed when they arrived.
Elena had insisted on coming. Adrian hadn't argued, which told her more about his state of mind than anything he could have said in the car — twenty minutes of near silence, his knee bouncing once, twice, before he caught himself and stilled it with a visible effort.
"You don't have a vote in there," she said, as they crossed the marble lobby of Vale Industries. "Why does it help for me to be in the room?"
"It doesn't," he said. "I want you there anyway."
That was the most honest thing he'd said to her all week.
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Twelve board members sat around a table built for exactly that many, and every single face turned when the doors opened. Elena recognized the type immediately — old money, older grudges, the particular species of
