Chapter 137

[ 1,014 words ]

Katia’s POV

Mother called on a Thursday with the warmth she deployed when she was about to do something I wasn’t going to like.

“A spa weekend,” she said. “Just you and me. Girls’ trip. You’ve been working too hard, Katia; everyone can see it. Two nights at Rosewood. My treat p>

I looked at Sam across the office. Sam looked back.

“Just us?” I said.

“Just us,” Mama said. “Mother and daughter. Long overdue p>

I should have said no. I knew I should have said no. I said yes because Dad had called me the week before and said quietly that Mother had been having a difficult few months, and he thought it would mean something if I made the effort, and because, despite everything, I was still capable of making efforts for people who had hurt me when I believed the effort was genuine.

The effort was not genuine.

I arrived at the Rosewood on Friday afternoon to find that the spa weekend had three additional guests.

I discovered this when a man knocked on my door at seven PM holding roses. He was tall and presentable, with the slightly over-prepared look of someone who had been told he was meeting someone important and had dressed accordingly. He introduced himself as Christopher. He said my mother had mentioned I might enjoy dinner.

I looked at Christopher and his roses for a moment.

“Wait here,” I said.

I closed the door. I picked up my phone and called Mama.

She answered on the second ring with a brightness that told me she had been waiting for this call. “Katia! How is the room? Isn’t it lovely p>

“Mother,” I said.

“The spa menu is extraordinary; I’ve already booked us for p>

“Mother p>

She stopped.

“There is a man named Christopher outside my door with roses,” I said. “Would you like to explain that p>

She paused. The pause of someone recalibrating their approach. “He’s a lovely man, Katia. Family money, very established, I thought you might p>

“How many?” I said.

“I’m sorry p>

“How many men did you invite to this spa weekend p>

She took a long pause.

“Three,” she said. “But they’re all very p>

“Goodbye, Mother p>

“Katia, if you’d just p>

I hung up.

I opened the door. Christopher was still there, roses in hand, looking mildly uncertain.

“Christopher,” I said pleasantly. “I’m going to be completely honest with you. My mother invited you here without telling me. I’m sure you’re a perfectly decent person and none of this is your fault. But I’m going to ask you to take the roses to the front desk as a gift for the staff and enjoy your weekend independently.” I smiled. “I have a lot of work to do p>

He blinked. Then, to his credit, he laughed. “Fair enough,” he said.

I closed the door.

I called Mama back.

She answered on the first ring this time.

“Mother,” I said. “I am going to say this once, so I need you to listen carefully p>

“Katia p>

“Once. I am married. I have a son. I run a billion-dollar company, and I have approximately zero hours in my week for whatever this is.” I kept my voice level. “The next man you send my way at a spa weekend, a charity gala, a family lunch, or anywhere will receive a very polite letter from my legal team and a fruit basket. The letter will be professional. The fruit basket will be excellent. But I want to be clear that the letter comes first p>

There was silence on Mama’s end.

Then, somewhere in the background, I heard Dad laugh.

Not the polite laugh. The genuine one — sudden and uncontrolled, the laugh of a man who had been sitting in the same room as this phone call and had not been able to hold it in for a single second longer.

“David,” Mama said sharply.

He laughed harder.

I felt something ease in my chest. Just slightly.

“Goodnight, Mother,” I said.

“This is not p>

“Goodnight p>

I hung up.

I stood in the middle of the Rosewood hotel room for a moment. Then I opened my laptop, ordered room service, and turned the spa weekend into a working weekend.

Sam texted at nine PM: How’s the spa?

I sent back a photo of my laptop open on the Dubai expansion review with a glass of wine beside it.

Her reply: Iconic.

I worked until midnight. The expansion review, the false data package for Daniel Osei, the London infrastructure brief that Davies had submitted on Tuesday and that I had been meaning to annotate for three days. The room was quiet. The hotel was the kind of place that absorbed noise and produced peace, and I appreciated both.

At some point I stopped working and sat on the balcony with the last of the wine.

I thought about the Windsor lunch. About Grandma Celeste saying “you were supposed to be part of this family” with the calm certainty of someone stating a fact rather than offering a sentiment. About Julian putting lamb on my plate without thinking. About the way Gail had looked at Delia in the corridor — not unkindly, just completely clearly.

I thought about Monday. About the conversation Julian and I had agreed to have when we got back from Dubai.

We had not had it yet. The week had happened — the lunch, Mother’s spa ambush, and the Victor Hale file sitting in my head like something I hadn’t finished reading. Monday had become Wednesday, which had become Friday, and the conversation was still sitting between us unscheduled.

I would call him tomorrow.

Or he would call me.

One of us would call the other, and we would have the conversation that had been waiting since we stood on a terrace in Dubai with the city forty floors below us and said things we could not unsay.

I finished the wine.

I went to bed.

In the next room one of Mama’s three eligible men was presumably having a significantly less complicated evening.

Good for him.

I had work to do.

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