The Meeting
title: "Proof" wordCount: 2495
The storage unit key is cold in Reese's hand when he calls, and I know before he speaks that whatever he found will change everything.
"You want to tell me what I'm looking for?" His voice crackles through the phone, echoing slightly. He's in the unit. Already searching.
"Employment records." I'm sitting on the floor of my room, back against the bed, phone pressed so hard to my ear it hurts. "Anything from the eighties. Pay stubs, tax forms, letters."
"Sloane."
"Please."
A long pause. Boxes shifting. The scrape of cardboard on concrete. "This about the Ashfords?"
My throat closes. "Yeah."
"Okay." No more questions. That's Reese—he saves his interrogations for after he's helped. "Give me twenty minutes."
The line goes dead.
I pull my knees to my chest and count my heartbeats. Somewhere downstairs, Lily is probably eating breakfast. Patricia is probably reading the paper. Dominic is probably in his study, doing whatever billionaires do when their worlds are imploding.
Marcus is probably planning his next move.
My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number: Ask about Chen. Ask about the patent.
I delete it without responding. Whoever's feeding me information can go to hell—I'm done being anyone's puppet.
Nineteen minutes later, my phone rings.
"You need to see this." Reese sounds strange. Careful. "I'm sending photos now."
My screen lights up with images. The first is a pay stub: Ashford Industries, Research Division. Employee: Sarah Whitley. Date: March 1984.
The second is a letter on law firm letterhead. I zoom in, my hands shaking so badly the image blurs.
Dear Ms. Whitley, Regarding the patent dispute settlement between Dr. James Chen and Ashford Industries, your signature is required on the enclosed non-disclosure agreement. As Dr. Chen's research assistant, you are entitled to 15% of the settlement amount ($2.3 million) in exchange for your silence regarding the circumstances of the patent transfer. Please contact our office to arrange—
The letter cuts off. The next photo shows the corner of another document, but it's too blurry to read.
"There's more," Reese says. "A whole box of stuff. Legal papers, research notes. And Sloane? There's a photo."
The next image loads. It's faded, the colors washed out the way old Polaroids get. A woman with my nose and Reese's eyes stands next to a man in a lab coat. They're both smiling. Someone wrote on the white border in blue pen: Dr. James Chen & Sarah, 1984.
"Who's Chen?" Reese asks.
"The man who invented the thing that made the Ashfords rich." My voice sounds like it's coming from underwater. "The man they stole it from."
"Jesus."
"Send me everything. Every page, every photo, every scrap of paper in that box."
"Sloane, what are you going to do?"
"I don't know yet."
Another lie. I know exactly what I'm going to do.
The garden is empty when I find Dominic there an hour later, sitting on the stone bench near the fountain with his phone in his hands. He looks up when my footsteps crunch on the gravel path, and something in his face shifts—not quite fear, but close.
"We need to talk." I stop three feet away. Close enough to see his expression. Far enough to run.
He sets his phone down carefully. "About what Marcus said last night."
"About what you didn't say." I pull out my phone, open the photos Reese sent. "When were you going to tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
I turn the screen toward him. The pay stub. The letter. The photo of my mother with a man whose invention built his family's empire.
Dominic goes very still. The kind of still that means he's calculating, measuring, deciding what truth he can afford to give me.
"When did you know?" My voice is steady. I'm proud of that. "When did you find out my mother worked for Chen?"
"Three weeks ago." He doesn't look away. Doesn't make excuses. "My investigator found her name in the old employment records."
Three weeks. I count backward. Three weeks ago, we were—
"You knew." The words taste like copper. "You knew who I was, what your family did to mine, and you didn't say anything."
"I didn't know how to tell you."
"You didn't know how to tell me?" My laugh is sharp enough to cut. "Here's how: 'Sloane, my family destroyed yours. Sloane, my father stole from the man your mother worked for and paid her to stay quiet. Sloane, everything you have—everything you are—exists because we took it from you.'"
"That's not—"
"Which part?" I step closer. "Which part isn't true?"
He stands, and I have to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. "The part where I knew when I hired you. I didn't. The investigator only found the connection two weeks after you started."
"Two weeks." I'm doing math again. Two weeks after I started was right before he kissed me in his office. Right before everything changed. "So you found out, and then you decided to—what? Seduce me? Keep me close?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"I didn't tell you because I was afraid." His voice drops. "I was afraid you'd think I hired you to keep you quiet. That everything between us was about managing a liability."
"Wasn't it?"
"No."
"Prove it."
He reaches for me, but I step back. His hand falls.
"I can't prove it," he says quietly. "I can only tell you the truth. I didn't know who you were when I hired you. I didn't know about your mother until weeks later. And when I found out, I should have told you immediately, but I was terrified you'd leave before I could explain."
"Explain what?"
"That I was already in love with you."
The words hit like a fist to the sternum. I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly it physically hurts.
But my mother believed someone once, and it destroyed her.
"That's convenient," I say. "Really convenient timing on that revelation."
"Sloane—"
"Did you know?" The question rips out of me. "Before you hired me. Did you know who I was?"
"No."
"Swear it."
"I swear." He takes a step toward me. I don't move. "I swear on everything I have, everything I am. I didn't know."
"Your father knew." It's not a question.
Something flickers across his face. "I don't know what my father knew."
"But you suspect."
Silence.
"Dominic." My voice cracks on his name. "Did your father know who I was when you hired me?"
"I think—" He stops. Starts again. "The timing was strange. He suggested I hire someone. He had Patricia recommend you specifically. And now, knowing what I know about your mother, about Chen—"
"He set this up." The pieces slot together with sickening clarity. "He knew who I was. He wanted me here."
"I don't know that for certain."
"But you suspect it."
"Yes." The word is barely audible. "Yes, I suspect it."
I should leave. I should pack my bag and walk out of this house and never look back. But my feet won't move, and my hands are shaking, and I can't stop staring at him like if I look hard enough I'll be able to see the truth written on his face.
"Why?" My voice is small. I hate how small it sounds. "Why would he want me here?"
"I don't know."
"Guess."
He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful. Measured. "My father is very good at creating situations where people owe him something. Where they're grateful. Where they feel like they can't leave."
"You think he wanted me to feel indebted."
"I think he wanted you close enough to control."
"And you." I force myself to ask it. "What did you want?"
He looks at me like I've stabbed him. "I wanted you to be safe. I wanted you to be happy. I wanted—" He stops. "It doesn't matter what I wanted."
"It matters to me."
"I wanted you to choose me." The words come out raw. "Not because of money or obligation or fear. I wanted you to choose me because you wanted to."
"How can I?" The question breaks on the way out. "How can I choose you when I don't know if anything between us was real?"
"It was real." He reaches for me again, and this time I let him. His hands frame my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones. "Every moment. Every word. Every time I touched you—it was real."
"You're a good liar." My eyes are burning. "Your whole family is."
"I'm not lying."
"Prove it."
"How?" His voice is desperate now. "Tell me how to prove it, and I will."
"You can't." I pull away from his hands. "That's the problem. You can't prove something that might not exist."
"Sloane—"
"My mother loved someone once." The words spill out before I can stop them. "She loved him, and she trusted him, and he destroyed her. She spent the rest of her life working herself to death because she believed someone who said he cared about her."
"I'm not—"
"How do I know?" I'm crying now, hot angry tears that I swipe away with the back of my hand. "How do I know you're not doing the same thing? How do I know this isn't just another way to keep me quiet?"
"Because I'm telling you to fight." His voice rises. "I'm telling you to take everything my family owes you. I'm telling you to burn it all down if that's what you need."
"You don't mean that."
"I do." He grabs my shoulders. "I mean it. Take the money. Take the company. Take everything. I don't care. I just—" His voice breaks. "I just don't want to lose you."
"You never had me." The lie tastes like ash. "You had someone you thought you could save. Someone you could fix. But I'm not broken, Dominic. I'm just poor. And your family made sure I stayed that way."
"That's not fair."
"None of this is fair." I shove his hands off my shoulders. "My mother died in debt. She died exhausted and alone because your father paid her to stay quiet about a crime. And you—you knew about it for weeks and said nothing."
"I was trying to protect you."
"I don't need your protection." My voice is ice. "I need the truth. I need to know if you hired me because you wanted me or because your father told you to."
"I hired you because Patricia recommended you."
"And Patricia knew who I was."
"Yes."
"And your father knew who I was."
"Probably."
"So everyone knew except me." I laugh, and it sounds unhinged. "Everyone in this house knew exactly who I was and what your family did to mine, and I was just—what? The entertainment? The project?"
"You were never a project."
"Then what was I?"
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. "You were the first real thing I'd felt in years."
"Real." I taste the word. "You want to talk about real? Real is my mother's handwriting on the back of that photo. Real is the pay stubs she kept in a box for thirty years. Real is the fact that your family owes mine millions of dollars, and instead of paying it, they hired me to take care of your daughter."
"I didn't know—"
"But you do now." I step back. "You know now, and you're still standing here trying to convince me this was all some cosmic coincidence. That your father didn't orchestrate this whole thing. That you didn't go along with it."
"I didn't go along with anything." His voice is hard now. "I fell in love with you. That wasn't part of anyone's plan."
"How do I know that?"
"Because I'm here." He spreads his arms. "Because I'm telling you everything. Because I'm giving you ammunition to destroy me, and I don't care as long as you believe me."
"I want to." The admission costs me. "I want to believe you so badly it scares me."
"Then believe me."
"I can't." My voice breaks. "I can't afford to."
He stares at me for a long moment. Something in his face shutters. "What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to have told me three weeks ago."
"I can't change the past."
"No." I wipe my face with my sleeve. "You can't."
The silence stretches between us like a chasm. I can see him trying to find the words that will fix this, the explanation that will make it okay. But there isn't one. There's just the truth: his family destroyed mine, and he knew, and he didn't tell me.
"Did you love me?" The question slips out before I can stop it. "Before you knew. Did you love me?"
"Yes." No hesitation. "Yes, I loved you."
"Past tense."
"No." He steps toward me. "Present tense. I love you. Right now. Knowing everything. I love you."
"You love the idea of me." My voice is flat. "You love the girl who needed saving. But I'm not her. I'm the daughter of the woman your father destroyed. I'm the granddaughter of the man whose invention built your empire. I'm the person who should hate you."
"Do you?" His voice is barely a whisper. "Do you hate me?"
I open my mouth to say yes. The word won't come.
"I don't know what I feel," I say instead. "I don't know if anything I felt was real or if it was just—"
"It was real." He's in front of me now, close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his eyes. "Whatever you felt, it was real. I know because I felt it too."
"You felt guilty."
"I felt alive." His hands hover near my face, not quite touching. "For the first time in years, I felt alive."
"Because you were slumming it with the help?"
"Because you saw me." The words are fierce. "Not my money. Not my name. Not the company or the legacy or any of it. You saw me, and you didn't look away."
"Maybe I should have."
"Maybe." He lets his hands drop. "But you didn't."
I want to kiss him. I want to hit him. I want to run and stay and scream and cry and I can't do any of it because I'm frozen, trapped between what I want and what I know I should do.
"I need time," I finally say. "I need to think."
"How much time?"
"I don't know."
"Sloane—"
"Please." The word cracks. "Please just give me space."
He nods slowly. Steps back. "Okay."
"Okay."
I turn to leave, and that's when I see him. Marcus, standing in the garden doorway with his phone raised. The camera flash goes off as I shove Dominic away, my face twisted in fury, and Marcus smiles.
"Perfect," he says softly, lowering the phone. "That's perfect."