Chapter 8
Celia's POV
His hand came down.
The sound was clean. Sharp. The kind that doesn't echo — it just lands, and then it's over, and the room is very quiet.
I registered the sting of it, the heat spreading across my cheekbone. I heard Vanna's breath catch from the doorway. And in the space of about two seconds I also registered the exact expression on Kent's face: the brief, startled blankness of a man who has crossed a line he told himself he would never cross, and has not yet decided what to do with that information.
I raised my right hand and hit him back.
Same angle, same force — maybe a little more. He stumbled half a step to the right and caught himself on the doorframe.
I put my hand down. "We're even," I said.
Vanna found her voice first. She started to say my name, and I turned away from her entirely and walked to the door. Martha was in the hallway, standing still with the look of someone who had heard everything and was waiting to be addressed.
"I need a written inventory," I told her, "of everything in the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen that wasn't in the original furnishing specification for this unit. Every piece of furniture, every appliance. Send it to me by tonight."
"Yes, Mrs. Grant."
I walked past her and didn't look back. Behind me I heard Kent say, low and controlled, "You know what you just did?" and I heard the slight waver underneath it that he couldn't quite iron out.
I took the elevator down to the garage and got into my car. I sat there in the quiet for about thirty seconds with my hands in my lap, not moving. The left side of my face still had some warmth in it. I touched it once, lightly, with two fingers, and then put my hand back down.
"I've never been hit before." The thought arrived plainly, without drama. I held it for a moment and then I set it aside, because holding it wasn't useful and I had somewhere to be.
My eyes had gone a little hot. I didn't let anything come of that either.
I started the car and called Rachel on the speaker as I pulled out of the garage. "Tonight," I said. "Blue Echo. I'm not stopping until I can't form sentences."
"Done," she said immediately. "I'm closing the bar. Just you." A beat. "Tell me he looks worse than you."
I almost smiled. It was the kind of almost-smile that sits right next to something much less comfortable, and we both knew it. "Drive safe," I said, and let her go.
My phone lit up at the third intersection. Dad.
His voice was the same as always — measured, low, the particular register he used when he'd already decided how a conversation was going to end. "Where are you."
I gave him the cross street.
"Come directly here."
"What's this about?"
"We'll talk when you get here." He paused. "Kent's already arrived."
My fingers tightened on the wheel, once, and released. "I'll be there in forty minutes," I said.
I texted Rachel — Rain check, my father called — and she sent back a flame emoji and then: Grant family got there first, huh. I read it at the next light and didn't reply.
The drive to Greenwich took forty-three minutes. The estate gates opened before I'd fully stopped, which meant someone had been watching the camera feed. I pulled up to the front and the estate manager let me in without comment.
The sitting room had been arranged with purpose. My father was in the primary chair — dark navy bespoke, the one he always occupied when he wanted the room to understand who was running the meeting. On the side table next to him: an unopened bottle of Scotch with a small card I recognized as Kent's handwriting, and a new watch on my father's wrist with a brand logo I identified in about three seconds as one of Kent's sponsorship partners.
Kent was on the left side of the sofa, jacket on, posture relaxed in the way that takes effort to maintain. Vanna beside him, expression appropriately composed. Ivy on the floor with a set of pink building blocks, assembling something with great concentration.
There was no seat for me on the sofa. My father gestured toward the single chair across from him, and I sat in it with my bag on my knees and my spine straight.
"Kent told me what happened today," my father said.
I waited.
"You struck your husband, Celia."
"He struck me first."
My father's brow moved — a brief compression, then a release. His tone didn't change. "Tensions between a husband and wife don't need to become an incident. Kent has come here, in person, to acknowledge that his handling was imperfect. The matter ends here."
He cleared his throat, posture straightening, and when he spoke again his voice had taken on the slightly formal quality that preceded an announcement. "Regarding your representation agreement with Hale Botanical — the board and I have discussed it. Given your recent health situation and Vanna's marketing background, we've decided to transfer the brand ambassador contract to her on an interim basis. You'll assist in an advisory capacity while she gets up to speed."
Kent inclined his head toward my father in a way that managed to communicate gratitude without being obvious about it. Vanna lowered her eyes and held very still, performing a restrained version of someone receiving an unexpected honor.
I sat with it for a moment. The ambassador contract. The one I'd negotiated myself, three years ago, because my father had needed someone he trusted to represent Hale Botanical's research credibility at a conference in Geneva and there had been no one else. That contract.
"All right," I said.
My father looked at me for a beat — not long, but long enough for me to see that my answer had not been what he'd prepared for. Vanna said something gracious to him, something about honoring the opportunity, and he accepted it.
I looked at Ivy. She was stacking her blocks — a leaning pink tower, three levels high. She set a fourth block on top and it held for a second. Then it didn't.
She started over.
"Of course it will," I thought, watching her begin again from the bottom.
My father didn't walk me out. Kent did.
He caught up with me at the top of the front steps, and when I stopped he came around to stand beside me rather than in front of me — a small, deliberate adjustment, the kind he made when he wanted to appear conciliatory without actually conceding anything.
"I know today wasn't easy," he said, his voice dropping to something that might have passed for remorse. "But Vanna needs this right now, and you know better than anyone how critical the Hale Botanical renewal is — for the company, for both of us." He paused, waiting, and when I gave him nothing he reached out and touched my arm lightly. "Tell me what you need. New jewelry, a trip — whatever you want. Just say the word."
I turned and looked at him. He was doing the thing where he read faces, calculating what the situation was going to cost him and whether the number was manageable.
"Money," I said.
He stopped.
