Bitter inheritance

chapter three

### Chapter Three: Old Wounds

The forced proximity, as it turned out, was not a single signature and done. Aldridge's estate clause required "good faith cooperation in the transfer process" — a phrase vague enough that Damian's lawyers insisted meant thirty days of joint oversight on any assets in transition. Which meant Elena found herself, against every instinct she owned, walking the auction floor beside the one man she'd promised herself she'd never stand this close to again.

"You're doing that thing," Damian said on the third day, as they catalogued a shipment of contested provenance pieces together.

"What thing?"

"Where you look at me like you're deciding whether I'm worth the trouble of hating."

"I've already decided," she said. "I just enjoy revisiting the verdict."

The ghost of a smile. It infuriated her, how easily he could still do that — crack something loose in her chest with almost nothing at all.

They worked in silence for a while, cataloguing a set of nineteenth-century letters that some minor European estate wanted appraised. It was slow, careful work, the kind that used to be Elena's favorite part of the business — holding history in her hands, deciding what it was worth.

"Why didn't you ever call?" Damian asked, so quietly she almost missed it.

Elena's pen stopped moving. "After the fire? You mean after your father's people torched half our archive and blamed faulty wiring?"

"I mean before that. When we were seventeen. When you left for school and stopped answering."

"You know why."

"I know what everyone assumes happened. I'm asking what you think happened."

She set the pen down. "You chose the business, Damian. Every time. Your father told you to stop seeing me, and you stopped seeing me. That's not a mystery I need explained."

"I was twenty. He controlled every account I had access to. I didn't have a choice the way you think I did."

"There's always a choice."

"Says the woman standing in the building she swore she'd burn down before she ever set foot in again."

That landed. She hated that it landed.

"I'm here for the money," she said. "Not for you."

"I know." Something in his voice went rough at the edges. "Believe me, I know exactly what I am to you."

He turned back to the letters before she could answer, and she spent the rest of the afternoon furious at herself for wanting to know what he thought he was to her, if not that.