Page 38 of Claimed By my Father's Enemies
I'm very good at being silent when I want to scream.
My body curls before I tell it to. Knees to my chest, arms around myself, the phone pressed flat against my sternum, and I'm crying the way I always cry, no sound, no movement, just the wet sliding down my face into the pillow, my jaw aching with holding everything else in.
The phone vibrates against my chest.
I look at the screen through wet eyes, blinking to clear them enough to read.
It's Adrian.
You have a passport, right?
The smile comes before I can do anything about it. Fragile, stupid, completely involuntary. I'm still crying. My face is wet, my chest seems like it is going to explode from holding so much and I'm smiling at a text message.
And for the first time since the call, I breathe properly.
14
WILLIAM
"What do you mean she doesn't want to sell?"
The question reverberates cold and menacing in the office. The room echoes it. Stone, dark walnut and smoked glass, nothing soft anywhere to catch the edge of it.
Good.
Paula Cross goes still across from me.
Behind Paula's head, Century City sits in flat morning light through the floor-to-ceiling windows, in my corner office. Paula's perfume is gardenia over something synthetic. It arrived before she did, moved ahead of her down the corridor into the room, and it has been coating the back of my throat for the past twenty minutes.
That's how long she's been sitting in one of the black leather chairs across from my desk, carrying out this performance. And now, she lets me know that Sienna refuses to sell, even with the absurd price I’m willing to pay.
Paula sets her hands flat on the armrest. The composure is deliberate, aiming to appear natural, but I can see the practiceand effort behind it. "She's being unreasonable, like always." she says. Her voice is measured and careful. Calibrated. "She has no real attachment to that house. She didn't care about it when her father was alive. And now suddenly she's claiming the one property that matters."
I watch her.
Paula Cross is really good at this. The performance is precise. There is a slight catch in her voice at the right moment, controlled rather than genuinely ragged. Her shoulders carry the specific angle of a woman trying not to fall apart with emotion. She is the grieving widow who only wants her home, her final piece of the life she built. Every element of it is present and correctly placed.
"It was the only real home I ever had," Paula says. Her gaze moves toward the window. The hills in the distance, the pale morning haze. She wipes with the tip of her manicured fingers a non-existent tear. Then, she looks back to me, making sure I've tracked the significance. "Conrad and I built that life together. Every room in that house has something of ours in it. And now she wants to take it from me." A pause timed precisely. "She's doing it to be cruel. She is a cold vindictive bitch."
I can’t explain the impact those words have on me and why. My body wants to jump out of the chair when I hear what she says. Not so long ago I would say something similar regarding Sienna Cross. Now…I’m not so sure.
I drag my thumb once along my lower lip, holding the words that I instinctively want to say. Paula is still talking, and I let the words register as sound while I locate the thing that just happened in my chest before it disappears.
Why do I feel the need to defend Sienna?
I know who she is. I know what she did.
Paula is still watching me. She is waiting for the agreement. The nod that tells her we are on the same page.
I don't give it. If I can’t get what I want through Paula I will have to get it directly from Sienna. Find out what her angle is and pay whatever price she wants. Everybody has a price.
"Well, it was worth a try," I say, aiming for unbothered, "I guess we will move to another property."
Paula blinks. The widow impression adjusts, recalibrates. "Another property?"
"One that is available. I’m sure you understand."
"Of course." Her hands settle differently in her lap.
