Page 5 of The Knight (Endgame 2)
“All right,” I say, hollowed out.
A random employee won’t be able to help me. He won’t know anything about the illicit auction for my virginity or Gabriel’s role in my father’s downfall.
Except the person who comes to greet me isn’t a man. It’s a woman, her navy-blue suit accentuating a narrow waist and long, dark legs. Younger than I would have expected for a person in charge of accounts this size, only a couple years older than me.
“Ms. St. James,” she says, her voice almost sympathetic. “I’m Charlotte Thomas. Please, let me take you upstairs. We can discuss your case.”
“Oh, thank you,” I manage, dimly aware of her shepherding me toward the bank of gleaming elevators. I hadn’t expected to be greeted so warmly by anyone here, especially not someone who has knowledge of my family’s situation.
She directs me to the elevator at the end and swipes her key card to make it open. “After you.”
I step into the gilded box, acutely aware of my plain clothes. My image is reflected back at me as the doors slide shut, a scared little girl instead of the woman I wanted to become.
“Ms. Thomas—”
“Call me Charlotte, please. Ms. Thomas is my mother.” She gives a delicate shudder, mischief sparkling in her twilight eyes. “A shark of a woman.”
I blink, awareness seeping over me. “Wait. Nina Thomas?”
A wide grin, beautiful but somewhat reminiscent of a shark herself. “That’s her.”
“She was friends with my mother,” I say, at once charmed. I met Nina Thomas only a few times at society events, but she’d given me a genuine hug each time and told me I looked just like Helen St. James. And she’d been the maid of honor at my parents’ wedding.
“I know,” Charlotte says, cheerful. “Mom says they were best friends. And considering she only tolerates most people, that’s saying something.”
It strikes me then that Charlotte works for Gabriel Miller, the man who tore down my father with ruthless calculation, the man who bought my virginity. The man who stole my mother’s house. My throat tightens with grief, the strange relief that my mother’s not here to see what’s happened.
Dismay must show on my face, because Charlotte touches my hand. “I know your case has…special circumstances. And I’m going to do everything I can to help.”
“Does that include giving my house back?”
“No, but I’ll explain the process to you and walk you through it. Mr. Miller is—”
She breaks off as the elevator dings. Doors slide open to reveal a broad expanse of carpet framed by deep mahogany walls. The art consists of two large canvases on either side, white with bold slashes of color, more texture than covering, a visual gauntlet.
“Mr. Miller is…?” I prompt her.
She glances back. “He’s a hard man to understand, but he’s fair.”
Fair. That’s one word to describe the way he purchased me, the way he fucked me.
My head spins from the new surroundings, the dim lighting. I felt small in the elevator, but it’s nothing compared to this hallway. I’m Alice in Wonderland, having eaten the cake that makes me small. Everything feels oversize and dark. I’m falling, falling.
In contrast Charlotte walks brusquely across the heavy pile. “Don’t be afraid,” she says.
Which isn’t exactly comforting.
But I follow her anyway, working to keep my head held high, fighting the strange oppressive weight of all this space. We reach a wood panel with no doorknob. The faint outline of a rectangle in the wood is the only hint that there’s something here. Charlotte touches the wood, which lights up in a keyboard beneath her fingertips, some kind of glowing installation. High-tech security disguised as old-money luxury. The panel swings open, revealing an even larger office.
She leads me inside, her movements full of grace.
I feel like an unsteady colt following her, newborn and naive.
There are two wide leather chairs sitting in front of a desk the size of a car. I perch on the end of one, knees pressed together, hands squeezed between them. The hard press of denim against my skin grounds me. I’m not really falling. Or if I am, I’ll have to land soon.
Charlotte perches on the edge of the desk, only a few feet away. “Your house is in a kind of financial staging area, owned by a temporary holding company pending its auction to collect debts owed.”
My hands wring together. “I don’t understand how the house left my trust. It wasn’t owned by my father. It shouldn’t have been responsible for the judgments against him.”
And a dark part of me whispered that my mother had known something like this might happen, that she’d put it into my trust to protect me no matter what my father might do.
What secrets had she known?
“I’m not sure about the trust,” Charlotte says, expression apologetic. “All I know is what happened after the court seizure and subsequent placement with Miller Industries.”
