Page 18 of Forever We Embrace: The Later Years
His mouth curves, but he doesn't ask what happened in the boardroom. He works the second shoe loose and rests my foot against his thigh.
“Maceo has the procedure,” I tell him. “I kept the decisions.”
Grayson looks up at me from beneath the tie he stole. “Good.”
He presses his mouth briefly to the inside of my ankle before setting my feet on the rug. The contact is warm and deliberate, intimate enough to loosen the last of the tension in my shoulders without turning into another discussion about what my body can manage.
His phone begins ringing from the kitchen. Oliver’s name appears across the screen.
I lean back in the chair and close my eyes. “Peonies.”
Grayson stands, carrying my shoes in one hand as he answers. “They’re approved, Oliver.”
He pauses on his way toward the kitchen and looks back at me. “Yes,” he says into the phone. “Blake approved them personally.” Then he walks away wearing my tie.
9
Luca
The children have been asleep for nearly an hour when Maceo takes the plate from my hand before I can return it to the cabinet. He sets it on the counter, then leans one hip against the island and waits until I look at him.
“You told me the funding was manageable.”
“It is manageable.” I reach for the plate, but his palm stays over the rim. “Nicholas is working on alternatives. We still have enough to keep the current expansion work moving.”
“Nicholas showed me the structure he’s building because I’m reviewing the donor-control provisions. He would not be rebuilding the entire funding model if Ember House only needed a few replacement checks.” Maceo keeps his voice even as he asks, “How much of the expansion is actually funded?”
“Enough to keep working while he looks for other sources.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I turn away from him and begin wiping a counter Grayson already cleaned after dinner. The cloth passes over the same patch twice before Maceo takes it from me and sets it beside the sink.
Luther enters with two empty water glasses from upstairs and places them beside the dishwasher without interrupting. Grayson follows a moment later, carrying the tablet Rosalie talked him into letting her use before bed, and Blake comes in behind him with his cane tapping once against the threshold. None of them looks surprised to find Maceo standing across from me.
The realization arrives quietly. Luther has seen the donor channels narrow. Grayson has watched me close emails when he enters the room. Maceo knows Nicholas would not be constructing an entirely new funding model unless the old one had become unstable. Maceo has seen enough of the proposed safeguards to understand exactly what kind of money is circling Ember House.
“I have not lost the existing house,” I say. “Payroll is covered. The residents are safe. The unfinished rooms can wait.”
Grayson places Rosalie’s tablet on the table. “You close the contractor estimates whenever someone comes near you, and you stopped opening donor messages at home.”
“The estimates change every week.”
“The way you react to them doesn’t.”
Blake lowers himself into the chair nearest the end of the table. “Nicholas would not be spending this much time dividing the funding across multiple sources unless one donor leaving could take the expansion down with it.”
I look toward Maceo, but his expression has not softened. He doesn't accuse me of lying or ask why I kept the numbers from them. He only asks the question I have avoided answering in my own office.
“Have you considered accepting money from someone you don't trust because it would finish the intake rooms?”
I sit at the table and turn my phone facedown beside my elbow. The unopened messages remain hidden, but I know the wording of every offer waiting behind the dark screen.
“One foundation offered enough to complete two rooms,” I say. “They wanted a permanent board seat, quarterly resident statistics, and approval rights over any legal advocacy Ember House funds.”
No one interrupts me. Luther takes the chair across from mine while Grayson remains near the counter. Blake watches me from the other end of the table, and Maceo sits beside me without reaching for the phone or asking to see the draft.
“I wrote a counteroffer that removed the resident access and narrowed the approval rights, but I left the board seat in place. I never sent it.” My thumb presses against the edge of my phone. “I kept looking at the number because two finished rooms would mean two people I would not have to turn away.”
