Chapter 6

Every head turned toward the corner of the room.

I stood up.

I walked to the stage.

Gemma, positioned at the back of the hall, pressed a button on her laptop. The projection screen behind the floral arrangements lit up.

"This," I said, "is the ownership structure of Whitmore Enterprises."

The slides showed figures. Share percentages. Holdings.

"I founded this company twenty-three years ago. I own one hundred percent of the equity."

Next slide.

"My current assets. Fifty properties across London. A fleet of vehicles. Investment portfolios."

A sound moved through the crowd — the specific sound people make when they are recalibrating.

Eleanor leaned forward. Claire gripped the edge of the table.

"Total current valuation," I said, "in the region of forty million pounds."

I waited for the number to settle.

Sebastian's face did something I hadn't seen in twenty years. He looked almost young again, the way he'd looked when he still believed things were going to work out. Melissa's hand moved to his arm. Vivienne went very still beside Ethan.

Ethan looked at me like someone seeing a door open that he'd assumed was sealed.

"So," I said. "A gift for the happy couple."

Someone near the back began a tentative round of applause. Eleanor was already nodding, calculating.

"It's about time," Sebastian said, loud enough to carry. "We were starting to think she'd be difficult about it."

"Darling." Melissa touched his arm, composing herself into the picture of gracious composure. "Diana — we can put the past behind us. We're family now. There's plenty of room for all of us. Ethan can take over the running of everything, and we can all—"

Vivienne stepped forward. "Ms. Whitmore, if you're willing to let go of the old grudges, I promise we'll take good care of you. Ethan and I both—"

"Gemma," I said.

Gemma clicked the remote.

The slide changed.

"These assets," I said, "have been donated in full to the Women and Children's Protection Foundation. The legal transfer was completed three weeks ago. It's been filed and notarised." I paused. "Ethan receives nothing. Not a single pound."

The room went so quiet I could hear the string quartet pause mid-breath.

Eleanor's voice cut through first: a sound somewhere between a gasp and a scream. "You can't—that's Ethan's—that belongs to—"

Claire: "You selfish, spiteful—"

Sebastian surged to his feet. His face had gone an extraordinary colour. "Diana, you dare—you'd disinherit your own son—"

Melissa was on her feet too. "My daughter is carrying your grandchild. If you cut that child off, I swear to God I'll—"

I looked at Vivienne.

"Your mother," I said, "stood in the doorway of my home and told me to leave. She told me my husband didn't love me anymore and the dignified thing was to walk away. Your stepfather stood beside her and said nothing. Then he told me, when Ethan was ill and I asked for help, that he could die for all he cared."

I looked at Ethan.

"You had a father who didn't look at you twice in twenty years. A father who hoped you'd die in a hospital ward rather than give me the price of your treatment. And you thanked him tonight. From the stage. At your wedding."

Ethan said nothing. His face was the colour of the white flowers behind him.

"The boy I raised," I said, "used to tell me that I still had him. That he'd always be on my side. He'd never let anyone speak badly of me."

I looked at him for the last time.

"That boy isn't standing in front of me. So I'm going to stop looking for him."

I took my coat from the back of my chair.

"As of today," I said to the room, "Ethan and I are no longer mother and son. What happens to him going forward is no concern of mine. What happens to me is no concern of his."

I walked toward the exit.

Sebastian's voice followed me. "You'll regret this, Diana. When you're old and alone—"

I stopped at the door.

"I've been alone for twenty years," I said without turning. "I expect I'll manage."

I walked out into an autumn afternoon. The sky was high and pale and the air smelled faintly of something sweet — some nearby garden, or the flower stalls by the entrance. I stood on the hotel steps and breathed.

Something that had been lodged in my chest for a very long time was gone.

Ethan had always believed that love was a door that stayed open regardless of what you put it through.

His mother's love, specifically.

She had always come back. He had tested it — with stubbornness, with selfishness, with that particular cruelty that only children know how to inflict on the people who love them absolutely — and she had always come back. So he had left. He'd assumed there would be a message in a few days. He'd assumed she would soften.

He hadn't counted on the accounts being frozen. He hadn't counted on the title being pulled. He hadn't counted on the flat and the car being reclaimed without negotiation.

He'd sent messages every morning. She never replied. The shortbread biscuits he'd left for her had been thrown away by the building manager.

He hadn't counted on Sebastian going to her office and coming back via a police precinct, or on Vivienne's pregnancy doing nothing to move her.

He hadn't counted on the wedding.

When she'd walked to that stage — when the slides had come up, when he'd seen the figures, when his heart had started doing the thing it does when you finally, finally allow yourself to believe something is happening — he had felt it. She's coming back. She's choosing me. She's—

And then the last slide.

Donated in full. Ethan receives nothing.

He stood in the lights with the microphone hanging from his hand and heard his grandmother screaming and his father shouting and Vivienne saying his name — and he heard, underneath all of it, his mother's voice listing the things Sebastian had done. The things Melissa had done. The things Vivienne had said.

And somewhere in the middle of it, quietly and with terrible clarity: That boy isn't standing in front of me.

He thought about being five years old and telling her she still had him. He had meant it. He had meant every word.

He just hadn't understood, until that moment, what it would cost her when she found out he'd lied.