Chapter 172

[ 1,130 words ]

Katia’s POV

The invitation came through Gail.

A text, simple and direct, the way Grandma Celeste communicated everything: Come for lunch on Thursday. Just us. One o’clock.

I had looked at it for a moment and then said yes because you did not say no to Grandma Celeste and also because something in the simplicity of it — just us — felt like something I needed without knowing exactly why.

I arrived at one o’clock exactly.

The estate was quieter than usual. No Gail’s shoes at the door. No sound of Aiden from somewhere upstairs. I followed the housekeeper to the sitting room, where Grandma was already at the table, the good china out, a plate of the cookies she made herself in the centre.

“Where’s Aiden?” I said.

“Out with Gail,” Grandma said. “They went to the aquarium. He has been asking about marine biology apparently p>

I sat down. Of course he had.

Grandma poured the tea. She did it with the unhurried ease of someone who had been pouring tea for eighty years and saw no reason to rush it now. She pushed the cookies toward me.

We talked about small things for a while. The London expansion. Aiden’s pasta preference. Gail’s terrible cooking. Grandma made me laugh twice, and I did not see either of them coming, which was her particular skill.

Then she set her cup down and looked at me.

“Tell me,” she said, “how you built IG Technologies p>

I looked at her.

There was something in the way she asked it — not the polished curiosity of someone making conversation, but the direct attention of someone who genuinely wanted to know and had decided this was the moment to ask.

I thought about how to answer.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” I said. “What I’m about to tell you is only known by one other person in the world: Samantha, my right hand p>

Grandma nodded. Said nothing.

“I started racing when I was eighteen,” I said. “Underground. Cars and motorbikes. My family didn’t know. Nobody knew.” I picked up my cup. “That’s where the money came from. Racing prize money. When my parents threw me out, I had already been building a life for myself for two years. They didn’t know that. They thought they were putting me on the street with nothing.” I paused. “They weren’t p>

Grandma was watching me with the full, quiet attention she gave to things that mattered to her.

“The seed money for IG Technologies came from racing,” I said. “I used it to go to Harvard and then to acquire Meridian Systems. Everything after that I built myself.” I looked at her directly. “Gail doesn’t know I race. I hate that I’ve never told her. But nobody knows, and I mean nobody, because I have been racing under an alias for eight years, and the moment that alias is connected to my name, everything becomes complicated p>

Grandma was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, “Catwoman p>

I stared at her. I had committed to being honest.

“Yes,” I said.

Grandma nodded slowly. No shock. No drama. Just the nod of someone whose suspicion had just been confirmed.

“I am a fan,” she said simply.

I could not find words for a moment. “You’re a fan,” I repeated. Still processing.

“I have been for several years,” she said. “The Monaco tunnel section in particular.” She picked up her tea. “You are extraordinary, Katia p>

I looked at her. Grandma Celeste Windsor, sitting in her formal sitting room with the good china and the homemade cookies, had been watching underground circuit racing for years. Watching me. Without knowing it was me.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

“Let me ask you something else,” she said. “Do you recognise me? From somewhere other than this family p>

I looked at her properly. The bone structure. The eyes. The way she held herself.

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think so. Should I p>

“Perhaps not,” she said. “It was a long time ago. You were very young.” She set her cup down. “There was a park. You would have been about fourteen. It was a Saturday afternoon. You were wearing a yellow flower dress p>

I looked at her.

“A woman on a bench,” Grandma continued. “She went very pale. You stopped. Most people walked past p>

Something stirred. Distant. A Saturday. A park. A woman who had gone the colour of paper and—

“You couldn’t breathe,” I said slowly. The memory was coming back in pieces. “I thought you were having a heart attack. I sat with you and I kept talking to you because I didn’t know what else to do and I didn’t want you to think you were alone p>

“Yes,” Grandma said.

“That was you,” I said. I was staring at her. “I stayed until the ambulance came. You kept telling me to go, that you were fine, and I kept telling you I wasn’t going anywhere p>

“You held my hand,” Grandma said. “The whole time p>

I looked at her hand across the table. The same hand.

“Are you alright?” I said immediately. “Are you still having those episodes? Have you been properly looked after, because when I left I didn’t know if p>

“Slow down,” Grandma said. She was smiling. “Slow down, child. I have been considerably better since that day p>

I stopped. I was still holding her hand.

“I have been considerably better,” she said. “Since the day a young woman in the park sat with me and held my hand and talked to me calmly until help arrived.” She looked at me. “I made you a promise that day p>

I went still.

“I told you,” Grandma said quietly, “that I would let you marry my grandson p>

The sitting room was very quiet.

I looked at her. At this woman I had met in a park when I was fourteen years old and had never connected to the grandmother of a man I shouldn’t love. Two separate lives, two separate contexts, colliding in a sitting room over tea and cookies.

“Oh,” I said. “It’s you. That was—you were the woman from the park p>

“I kept my promise,” Grandma said. She said it simply. Warmly. Without accusation.

I looked at her hand in mine.

And I felt it land — the full weight of it. She had made a promise to a fourteen-year-old girl. She had gone home and arranged an engagement and kept it and waited and kept her word for over a decade.

“I never kept mine,” I said quietly.

My voice was steady. My chest was not.

“I was supposed to marry your grandson, and instead I got knocked off track by a stranger one night in Las Vegas, and now I have Aiden and p>

I stopped.

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