Chapter 4: The Man with the Champagne Glass
Dorian Mercer noticed her the moment she stepped back onto the terrace.
She saw it — the slight pause before he lifted the glass again, the way his eyes moved to Aldric behind her, the half-second recalculation that crossed his face before the smile returned.
It was a very good smile.
She understood now how it had worked on so many people for so long.
She chose a table near the edge of the garden, close enough to the terrace that he would have to walk past her to reach the bar.
She sat down.
She ordered water from a passing server.
She waited.
He came to her in four minutes.
"Maren." He said her name like they were old friends interrupted mid-conversation.
"I didn't realize you'd been invited."
"I wasn't."
He pulled out the chair across from her and sat without being asked.
Up close, he was exactly what she remembered — handsome in a careful, maintained way, the kind of man who understood that confidence was its own form of armor.
"Then I'm surprised the staff let you through the gate."
"Aldric let me through."
The smile didn't move.
But something behind his eyes did.
"Aldric is a groundskeeper," Dorian said.
"He tends the rose beds.
I'm not sure why you'd take anything he says seriously."
"He tends the rose beds," Maren agreed.
"And for twenty-two years he's also kept very careful records of everything that happens on this estate."
Dorian set his champagne glass down.
"What is it you want, Maren?
Money?
A formal visitation arrangement?
I'm sure we can find something reasonable if you're willing to be adult about this."
"I want to know whose idea it was," she said.
"Using my sister."
The table between them went very quiet.
"I don't know what Aldric told you," Dorian said, "but whatever he showed you, I promise you it's not what it looks like.
There were legal complications at the time.
Everyone was trying to do what was best for Elodie."
"You drugged me."
"You were in a hospital.
You were medicated by your doctors."
"You chose the doctors."
He leaned back slightly.
"You're making a very serious accusation in a very public place.
I'd encourage you to think carefully about what happens next.
You signed those papers, Maren.
Whatever story you've constructed since then, the signature exists.
The court accepted it.
You have no standing."
"The signature on the original document belongs to a nineteen-year-old girl who was told she was helping me." Maren kept her voice level.
"Her name is Petra.
She lives in Portland now.
She has kept every letter she was sent during that period, including the one that explained what she needed to sign and why." She paused.
"She also kept the envelope.
With the return address."
Dorian said nothing.
"Your law firm's address," Maren said.
"The same firm that provided the lawyer who sat with me in the hospital room."
A string quartet near the far end of the garden shifted into something slower.
A few couples moved toward the small dance floor laid out on the lawn.
The afternoon was golden and warm and completely indifferent to what was happening at this particular table.
"You can't prove I directed any of that," Dorian said.
His voice had changed.
Still controlled, but the ease was gone.
"A law firm sends correspondence on behalf of clients.
That proves nothing about who the client was."
"The billing records might."
"You don't have the billing records."
"Not yet."
He studied her for a moment.
Then he leaned forward, and when he spoke again the friendliness was entirely gone.
"Let me be very clear with you.
I have a family law attorney on retainer who has handled every aspect of Elodie's custody for three years.
I have a judge who signed off on the arrangement.
I have documentation that you were deemed an unfit guardian at the time of the original proceeding — documentation that was accepted by the court and has never been successfully challenged." His voice dropped lower.
"If you pursue this, I will make sure that documentation becomes the first thing any new court sees.
And I will make sure that your name is attached to every piece of it in every public record available."
Maren looked at him steadily.
"Is Elodie afraid of you?"
The question landed differently than anything else she had said.
She watched it hit.
"That's a disgusting thing to ask."
"She apologizes when she spills water.
She checks Celestine's face before she answers a question.
She pressed her hand against her dress over the place where her wrist was hurting and she didn't say a word about it." Maren picked up her glass.
"I'm asking you directly.
Is my daughter afraid of you?"
Dorian stood up.
The chair scraped back across the stone.
"This conversation is over.
I'm going to ask the estate manager to escort you off the property.
If you resist, I'll call the police.
And if you contact my wife or my daughter again without going through my legal team, I will have a restraining order filed by Monday morning."
He straightened his jacket.
The smile was back — thinner now, but back.
"It was good to see you, Maren.
I hope you find some peace."
He walked away toward the bar.
Maren watched him go.
Then she looked down at the table, at the water glass, at her own hands.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from a number she didn't recognize.
*He's calling his lawyer right now.
I can see him from the kitchen window.
You have less time than you think.
— A*
She looked up.
Across the garden, through the tall windows of the estate kitchen, she could just make out Aldric standing at the glass, watching her.
She typed back one word: *Ready.*
His reply came in seconds.
*Then come to the groundskeeper's cottage.
May you like
There's someone there you need to meet.
She's been waiting three years to talk to you.*
