WORTHLESS SON-IN-LAW IS THE KING OF DYNASTY

Chapter 6

Édouard Moreau arrived in Paris four days after Lucas did. Lucas knew this because Sébastien told him, in the quiet, even-toned way that Sébastien delivered all information that was designed to be a warning without presenting itself as one.

"He has requested a meeting with the board of the hospitality group," Sébastien said. "To discuss the question of succession and whether the transfer was conducted in compliance with the family charter."

"Was it?"

"Completely. Your grandfather's instructions were unambiguous and properly documented." A pause. "That won't stop Édouard from raising the question."

"Let him raise it." Lucas was reading the three-year financial summary of the Montparnasse hotel, making small marks in the margin. "If he wants to challenge a legal transfer in open board proceedings, he's welcome to. The proceedings will be public record."

Sébastien looked at him. "You'd prefer it to be public."

"I'd prefer the board to see, on record, that the first thing Édouard did when faced with competition was attempt to use procedural mechanisms to circumvent it." He looked up. "That tells the board everything they need to know about which of us has confidence in their own merit."

A small silence. "Your grandfather was right about you," Sébastien said.

"He's right about very little," Lucas said, not unkindly. "But I'll accept the compliment."

* * * *

The meeting Lucas had not anticipated came from a different direction entirely.

He was at the hotel on a Thursday afternoon, sitting across from Brigitte reviewing the remediation plan for the damaged floors, when Théodore appeared in the doorway with an expression that communicated discomfort at several frequencies simultaneously.

"There is a visitor, Monsieur Moreau. A Monsieur Gérard Beaumont. He says he has a business proposition."

Lucas was very still for a moment. Then he set down his pen.

"Send him up," he said.

Brigitte looked at him. He gave her the briefest nod of acknowledgment — yes, I know; give me a moment — and she gathered her files and left with the quiet competence of someone used to reading rooms.

Gérard Beaumont entered in the manner of a man who has convinced himself that he is doing someone a favour. He was dressed well — better than Lucas had ever seen him at home, which told him that Gérard had done his research and understood, now, that the register of the Moreau name required a corresponding register of appearance.

He stopped when he saw Lucas clearly.

The adjustment in his expression was almost imperceptible. A fractional recalibration, the eyes reassigning the image before them to a different category. Lucas watched it happen and found it more interesting than satisfying.

"Gérard," he said. He did not stand. "Sit down."

Gérard sat. He had the look of a man who had prepared a speech and is now reviewing whether it requires revision.

"I heard — through contacts — that the Moreau group had a new principal." He paused. "I didn't know it was you."

"Why would you?" Lucas said pleasantly. "I was the worthless son-in-law. Easy to lose track of."

A visible swallow. "That was never my — Margaux can be — what I mean is, we welcomed you into our home, and there were difficulties, but — "

"You treated me as staff and paid me in contempt for three years," Lucas said. Still pleasantly. "But I don't think that's what you came to discuss. You have a business proposition."

Gérard straightened. "My development company has three projects in the outer arrondissements. Good properties, excellent locations, but we're in a transitional period financially, and I've been looking for a strategic partner who could provide bridging support in exchange for a profit share on completion."

Lucas picked up his pen and tapped it once, gently, on the desk.

"I've looked at your filings," he said. "Your projects are over-leveraged and dependent on a planning approval from the 19th arrondissement office that has been in review for seven months. The officer assigned to it has, in the last year, rejected four similar applications. You're not in a transitional period. You're in a pre-collapse period."

Gérard's face had gone a specific shade of pale.

"So you want me to provide bridging finance for a company that is structurally unsound, managed by a man who spent three years telling me I would never amount to anything, in exchange for a share of projects that may not receive planning permission." Lucas let the sentence settle. "That is what you're proposing."

"I — we could restructure the terms — "

"I'm going to do something for you, Gérard. I'm going to save you the indignity of the negotiation." He closed the folder on the desk. "I will not be investing in your company. Not now and not in any restructured form. If and when your projects face foreclosure, the Moreau group may choose to acquire certain assets at market value, which will by that point be considerably below current valuation. That is the extent of our future business relationship."

Silence.

"I think you should go now," Lucas said.

Gérard stood. His dignity was still intact, technically, though it required visible effort to keep it so.

At the door, he turned. "You've changed."

"Yes," Lucas agreed. "The same way a person changes when they stop letting other people define them."

The door closed.

Lucas sat in the quiet office for a long moment, then picked up his pen and returned to Brigitte's remediation plan.

The first piece had just moved on the board.

* * * *

He went to see Isabelle that evening, not because of the supply agreement — that had been settled on Tuesday, to her apparent satisfaction and his — but because the conversation at closing time had extended to seven, and then to eight, and they had walked along the Seine for an hour before either of them seemed to notice how far they'd gone, and he had found himself saying things he had not said to anyone: not about the revenge, which he kept precisely separate, but about the years before it. The three years. The small, daily erosions.

She had listened without performing sympathy, which was the thing he valued most about her. She had asked sharp questions. At one point she had said, "you stayed too long" — not as accusation, but as observation — and he had nodded, because it was true and he knew it.

"Why did you stay?" she had asked.

He had thought about it for a long time, the two of them standing at the parapet above the river, the city lit up around them.

"Because I believed being treated badly was the price of being tolerated," he said finally. "I was wrong. But I believed it."

She had looked at him in that direct, undecorated way she had. "You're not going to make that mistake again."

"No."

"Good." She had pushed off the railing and put her hands in her pockets. "Come and have dinner. I made too much ratatouille."

He had gone. And it had been the best evening he could remember.