Chapter 6: The Man Who Came to Dinner
He came home the next morning carrying a small gift bag from a Toronto airport shop — the kind of thing a man picks up in a hurry when he feels guilty about cutting a trip short.
Sabina met him in the entrance hall with a warm smile and both hands extended.
"You look tired," she said, touching his face.
"Long flight." He kissed her cheek.
"Where are the girls?"
"Still at breakfast.
They'll be so happy you're back."
He walked toward the dining room.
Sabina fell into step beside him, her hand finding his arm in the easy, proprietary way it always did — as though she had always been there, as though the house had always been hers.
Lorelai looked up from her toast and went very still for one second before her face broke open.
"Dad."
She was out of her chair before he reached the table.
He caught her and held on longer than he usually did.
Over her shoulder he could see Gemma watching him with the cautious expression of a child who had learned not to expect things.
He crossed to her and crouched down.
"Hi, sweetheart."
Gemma studied him for a moment.
Then she held out her stuffed rabbit.
It was the highest form of trust she knew how to offer.
He took it carefully with both hands.
"Thank you for letting me hold him."
Something in Gemma's face shifted — a small, private relief — and she climbed into his lap without being asked.
Sabina watched from the doorway with a smile that reached every part of her face except her eyes.
"I thought we could all have dinner together tonight," she said.
"The four of us.
Since you're back early."
"That sounds perfect," Chadworth said.
He meant none of it.
But he said it with the ease of a man who had spent twenty years in boardrooms learning to show nothing.
Dinner that evening was a performance on both sides of the table.
Sabina was warm, attentive, full of small stories about the girls' week.
She refilled his glass without being asked.
She laughed at the right moments.
She touched his hand twice.
Chadworth watched her and thought about the note in his jacket pocket.
*Patience.
The trust documents sign in spring.*
The girls were quieter than usual.
Lorelai pushed her food around her plate and answered questions in full sentences, the way children do when they are trying very hard to behave correctly.
Gemma ate steadily and kept her rabbit on the chair beside her.
After dinner, when Rosamund came to take the girls upstairs, Gemma turned at the doorway and looked back at her father.
"Are you staying?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"I'm staying."
She nodded once, as though filing this away as information rather than comfort, and followed Rosamund up the stairs.
Chadworth and Sabina sat with their wine in the sitting room.
"She's been asking that every night," Sabina said.
"Whether you're staying.
Children get anxious about routine." She tilted her head slightly.
"I've been thinking — once we're married, it might be good to establish clearer boundaries with the girls.
A more structured environment.
Less...
dependence on the household staff."
"What kind of boundaries?" Chadworth asked.
"Just healthier ones.
Children need to learn that the adults in their lives have their own relationships.
Their own space." She smiled.
"Rosamund is wonderful, but the girls are very attached.
It's not entirely healthy."
"You think we should let Rosamund go?"
Sabina set her glass down with the careful precision of someone choosing her words.
"I think, after the wedding, a fresh start makes sense.
New staff.
New routines.
A chance for the girls to bond with me properly, without — " She paused.
"Without divided loyalties."
Chadworth looked at her.
"That's a big change."
"Change is good." She reached over and covered his hand with hers.
"Trust me."
He held her gaze for two full seconds.
"I'll think about it," he said.
She smiled and leaned back, satisfied.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
A message from Marcus: *Handwriting confirmed.
Note is Mourne's.
Financial crimes contact is ready to move.
Call me at nine.*
Chadworth excused himself at half past eight with a mention of emails he'd neglected during the trip.
He closed the study door behind him and stood in the quiet for a moment.
Through the wall, he could hear Sabina moving in the sitting room.
The soft sound of her refilling her glass.
The low murmur of a phone call beginning.
He pressed his ear to nothing.
He didn't need to.
He already knew who she was calling.
He sat at his desk, opened his laptop, and began to read the full financial report Darvell had compiled overnight.
By nine o'clock, when Marcus answered on the first ring, Chadworth had read every page.
"Tell me what we need to do," he said.
"It's already in motion," Marcus said.
"But Chadworth — Mourne knows the trust signing was delayed.
Someone in the filing office tipped him.
He's going to push Sabina to accelerate."
Chadworth looked at the closed study door.
"How soon?" he asked.
"My contact thinks within forty-eight hours she'll make her move," Marcus said.
"Whatever that move is."
Chadworth looked at the financial report on his screen.
At the name Petra Voss.
May you like
At the words *custody restructuring*.
"Then we have less time than we thought," he said.
