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Chapter 43
The Wedding No One Wanted Him At.Clara's cousin Priya was getting married at the Jade Pavilion, a venue that had, four months earlier, belonged to nobody in the wedding party and now belonged entirely to Arthur.Arthur was nothing short of a business genius who continued his movement in respect to acquiring a lot of things.Arthur owned a lot of businesses and had built a lot of connections over time.The invitation had arrived reluctantly — Vivian's handwriting, noticeably softer than it used to be, three weeks into her job at the clinic's foot-care wing. Arthur. Priya insists you come, since you technically own the ballroom and she's worried you'll charge us a "personal appearance fee" out of spite if we don't invite you. Please don't. We can't afford spite anymore. — V.He went. He brought the jacket, because at this point it was less an outfit than a message.The extended Hartwell family had mostly learned to modulate their whispering by now — six weeks of watching relatives los
Chapter 42
The Grandson at the ClubChairman Cartwright's great-nephew, a twenty-six-year-old named Foster Cartwright-Bell, had inherited his family's name, a trust fund, and precisely none of his great-uncle's survival instincts.He'd been holding court at the Concordia Club's bar for twenty minutes, three drinks deep, entertaining a cluster of similarly hatched young men with the story of "the janitor who bought his way into the club" — a story he told with the specific cruelty of someone who'd never once had to earn anything, aimed at a man who was, at that exact moment, twenty feet away signing paperwork with the club's steward."I mean, don't get me wrong, the money's real," Foster was saying, swirling his scotch. "But you can't buy taste. You can't buy breeding. The man still wears a jacket that looks like he slept in a bus station. I heard he brought a plastic bag to his own mother-in-law's birthday party.""Grandmother," one of his friends corrected."Whatever. Point is, old money doesn
Chapter 41
The Woman Who Laughed at His ShoesPriscilla Vance — no relation, an irony Arthur enjoyed more than he probably should have — had spent the six weeks since VÉLORÉ pretending the entire incident hadn't happened.Priscilla Vance being a young, beautiful and attractive woman who exuded nothing short of simplicity and wellness as she was an observant individual.It was easier that way. She'd been the third woman in the fitting room, the one who'd laughed loudest at his gas-station shoes, the one who'd said Are those from a gas station? in a voice pitched to carry. When the story of the janitor-turned-trillionaire had exploded across every screen in the city, Priscilla had simply deleted the old texts, told her husband she'd "always thought there was something about him," and gone back to her regularly scheduled brunches.Her husband, Desmond Cole, ran a mid-sized private equity shop that specialized in buying distressed retail chains and stripping them for parts. It was, by pure and delic
Chapter 40
The Father Who RanGerald Hartwell had been in Zurich for six weeks, and Zurich, as far as Gerald was concerned, was the only city on earth that hadn't gone insane.Zurich was a peaceful place with clean communities and wonderful social amenities these places felt like a haven for safe people.He'd missed the anniversary. He'd missed the divorce. He'd missed the auction, the rally, the ledger, and every single headline his wife had frantically forwarded him with the subject line CALL ME NOW GERALD. He'd read maybe a third of them on the flight home, decided his family was exaggerating as usual, and landed determined to fix the one problem he understood: his idiot former son-in-law was apparently still sniffing around Clara.He stormed into the lobby of Vance Tower in a wrinkled travel suit, past a security desk that didn't even look up, and rode an elevator he wasn't supposed to have access to only because the operator recognized the Hartwell scowl and assumed, reasonably, that scowli
Chapter 39
The Price of a SandwichThe diner sat under the expressway on the north side, the kind of place with vinyl booths and a bell on the door, and at 11:40 on a Tuesday morning its newest employee was wiping down table six when the bell rang.The Bell's sound signalled something new was about to start in the immediate as the newest employee halted his cleaning activities.Julian Thorne looked up, rag in hand, hairnet crooked, three weeks into a plea deal that had traded testimony against forty of his father's old debtors for a suspended sentence, community service, and a court-ordered job — any job — and found Arthur Vance standing in the doorway in a canvas jacket.Julian looked completely miserable and his clothing was disheveled and his face betrayed no emotion as he observed Arthur Vance.Neither man spoke for a moment.There was no speech because absolute silence enveloped the entire room and this was the beginning of something that was entirely new."Booth or counter?" Julian said f
Chapter 38
One Thousand and Ninety-SixVivian Hartwell knelt at 8:14 p.m., in front of two hundred guests, one photographer, and her own mother's birthday cake, and the ballroom was so quiet that everyone heard her knees touch the marble.This was completely unexpected as she'd done something that nobody imagined she would ever do.She grabbed the hem of Arthur's canvas jacket. Her fingers were shaking so hard she could barely hold the fabric.She had experienced something that she'd never experienced before something ethereal in nature. She was seemingly behaving in a genuflecting manner before a former member of cleaning staff."Arthur — Arthur, please, be reasonable, we're family, three years under one roof, that has to mean—""Let go of my clothes." Arthur thundered as his face turned to that of a fierce one.The words came out of him flat and unhurried, and he watched her flinch as they landed — because she knew them. Of course she knew them. She'd been in the next room the morning her daug
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