Chapter 2 - What Happened Behind Closed Doors)
Ava did not remember leaving the mansion.
Later she would remember fragments.
Daniel carrying Lily through the service entrance so they could avoid the remaining guests.
Helen placing a clean blanket around the child.
The black SUV waiting behind the kitchen.
Margaret standing at an upstairs window.
Watching.
Always watching.
Daniel drove them to the townhouse in Beacon Hill that he had purchased before marrying Ava.
They had not slept there in almost a year.
Margaret disliked the property.
She said the rooms were too small for a Sterling.
That evening, for the first time, Ava was grateful for every narrow hallway.
The house felt human.
Daniel gave Lily a bath.
Ava sat on the bathroom floor while he gently washed mud from their daughter's hair.
Lily eventually stopped crying.
When Daniel tried to leave the room to get pajamas, Lily grabbed his shirt.
"No Grandma."
Daniel crouched.
"Grandma isn't here."
"No Grandma come."
"She won't."
Lily stared at him.
"Promise?"
Daniel's eyes filled.
"I promise."
He looked at Ava.
Ava understood what that promise meant.
If necessary, he would destroy his relationship with the woman who had raised him.
After Lily fell asleep between them in the master bedroom, Ava and Daniel went downstairs.
Neither turned on the television.
Neither checked their phones.
They knew the video was spreading.
They could feel it without looking.
Daniel opened a bottle of water.
Ava stood at the kitchen window.
"Why didn't she tell me?"
Daniel looked at her.
"Lily?"
Ava nodded.
"I'm her mother."
"She's two."
"She tells me when her shoe hurts."
"This is different."
"I should have known."
Daniel crossed the room.
"You trusted my mother."
Ava laughed bitterly.
"No. I tolerated your mother."
Daniel said nothing.
That was the truth they had both avoided for three years.
Margaret had never accepted Ava.
When Daniel first brought her to Sunday dinner, Margaret asked what Ava's parents did.
Ava told her the truth.
Her father repaired heating systems.
Her mother had worked as a school cafeteria manager before dying from ovarian cancer.
Margaret smiled.
"How industrious."
The word sounded like an insult.
Ava had been a scholarship student at Northeastern University.
She later built a successful interior design firm.
She earned more money than anyone in her childhood neighborhood could have imagined.
None of it mattered to Margaret.
Ava had not been born wealthy.
In Margaret's world, birth was the only résumé that could never be improved.
Daniel sat across from her.
"Tell me everything."
Ava looked at him.
"About your mother?"
"About anything you didn't tell me because you thought it would cause trouble."
Ava almost said nothing.
Then she remembered Lily flinching.
"There was Christmas."
Daniel frowned.
"What happened at Christmas?"
"Your mother gave Lily a porcelain doll."
"I remember."
"Lily dropped it."
"She was one."
"Your mother took her into the library."
Daniel's face changed.
"I thought she was changing her diaper."
"So did I."
"What happened?"
"When Lily came back, she wouldn't look at Margaret for the rest of the night."
Daniel stood.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't know."
"What do you mean you didn't know?"
"I thought she was tired."
Daniel turned away.
Ava continued.
"Then there was Easter."
He looked back.
"Your mother volunteered to watch Lily during the egg hunt."
Daniel's expression darkened.
"Lily screamed when we tried to leave afterward."
"We thought she wanted to stay."
Ava shook her head.
"What if she wanted to tell us something?"
Daniel pressed both hands against the counter.
Ava remembered another moment.
"And last month."
"What?"
"Margaret said Lily spilled juice on the breakfast table."
Daniel waited.
"She made Lily stand facing the wall."
"For how long?"
"I don't know. When I walked in, Margaret said it had just happened."
Daniel's jaw clenched.
"Lily was crying?"
"No."
That was worse.
"She wasn't crying at all."
Daniel closed his eyes.
Ava finally looked at her phone.
One hundred and eighty-four messages.
Thirty-one missed calls.
Her social media notifications were impossible to count.
Daniel's phone was worse.
A message appeared from his sister Caroline.
CALL ME BEFORE YOU TALK TO MOM.
Then another message appeared.
YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE TRUST.
Daniel stared at it.
Ava saw the screen.
"What trust?"
Daniel shook his head.
"I have no idea."
His phone rang.
Caroline.
Daniel answered.
"Tell me."
His sister did not bother saying hello.
"Mom called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning."
Daniel frowned.
"For Sterling Hospitality?"
"And the family foundation."
"Why?"
"She's telling everyone you assaulted her."
Daniel laughed once without humor.
"Technically I did."
"She's also saying Ava staged the incident to humiliate her."
Ava stared at the phone.
Daniel's expression became colder.
"Anything else?"
Caroline hesitated.
"Yes."
"What?"
"Mom says if you refuse to apologize publicly, she'll activate Father's morality clause."
Daniel went silent.
Ava asked, "What morality clause?"
Caroline answered.
"The clause that can remove Daniel from control of the Sterling voting trust."
Ava looked at her husband.
Daniel seemed genuinely shocked.
"I've never seen any morality clause."
"Neither have I."
Daniel frowned.
"Then how do you know about it?"
There was a long pause.
"Because Mom showed me the document tonight."
Daniel's face hardened.
"Send it."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"She only let me see it in her office."
Daniel looked at Ava.
"Then take a picture."
"I tried."
"And?"
"She caught me."
Daniel swore under his breath.
Caroline lowered her voice.
"Daniel, there was something strange about it."
"What?"
"The signature."
"Whose?"
"Dad's."
Daniel became very still.
May you like
Caroline continued.
"It didn't look like his."
