Chapter 7: What She Did in the Night
At eleven-fourteen, the light in the guest suite went off.
Marcus Webb's debt file was on Dominic's desk by eleven-thirty, delivered by Natalie in a manila folder with her attorney's card clipped to the front.
Dominic read it in full.
He made two calls — one to his own attorney, one to a number Emma didn't recognize.
Both conversations were brief.
At midnight, Emma checked the hallway.
The guest suite was dark and quiet.
At twelve-forty, Emma's phone lit up on her nightstand.
The message was from Lena, the youngest member of the household staff, who had the unfortunate habit of staying up very late and the fortunate habit of noticing everything.
*She went to the study.
She had a key.*
Emma was out of bed before she finished reading.
She moved through the back corridor quickly, not running, keeping her footsteps even.
The study door was slightly open.
Inside, the desk lamp was on — the small one, not the overhead — and Brooke was at the desk with the drawer open.
She was looking for the text message printout.
Emma pushed the door open fully.
Brooke looked up.
Her expression cycled through several things very quickly — surprise, calculation, recovery — and landed on something that tried to look like dignity.
"Emma."
"The drawer is empty," Emma said.
"He moved everything this afternoon."
Brooke straightened.
"I was looking for a pen."
"At twelve-forty in the morning."
"I couldn't sleep."
Emma stepped into the room.
"You need to go back to the guest suite, Brooke."
"You don't give me instructions."
"I'm not giving you an instruction.
I'm telling you what happens next if you stay in this room." Emma kept her voice entirely level.
"There are two members of Dominic's security team in this house tonight.
He asked them to log any movement after midnight.
You've been in this study for eleven minutes."
Brooke's hand came off the desk.
"He's having me watched in my own—"
"It's not your home."
The words landed quietly.
Brooke absorbed them.
"Not yet," she said.
"Not ever."
Brooke looked at Emma for a long moment.
The warmth she deployed so easily was entirely absent.
What remained was something harder and considerably more honest.
"You've been working against me since the beginning," Brooke said.
"I've been working for this family since before you knew it existed."
"You think you're protecting them." She tilted her head slightly.
"Emma.
I want you to think carefully about what your loyalty to Dominic Mercer has actually cost you.
Nine years in this house.
Watching other people's lives.
Cleaning up other people's problems." She paused.
"Is that really what you want your life to be?"
Emma didn't answer immediately.
She looked at Brooke — at the careful dress, the calculated softness, the honey-blond hair that was slightly less perfect than it had been at breakfast — and she thought about Catherine Mercer, who had once sat in this study and told Emma that the most dangerous people were not the ones who wanted power, but the ones who had decided they deserved it.
"Go back to the guest suite," Emma said.
Brooke picked up her phone from the desk.
"Griffin is filing an emergency injunction tomorrow morning," she said.
"To prevent Dominic from taking any unilateral action on the trust before the petition is heard." She said it pleasantly, as though sharing useful information.
"Your employer is not as far ahead of this as he thinks he is."
She walked past Emma toward the door.
At the threshold she paused.
"You should have taken the job I offered you in March," she said.
"The salary was considerably better."
Then she was gone.
Emma stood in the study for a moment.
Then she took out her phone and typed to Dominic.
*She was in the study.
Looking for the printout.
I interrupted her.
She mentioned an emergency injunction — Griffin, tomorrow morning.*
The reply came within a minute.
*I know.
His attorney called mine an hour ago.
We were expecting it.*
Emma looked at the empty desk drawer.
*She said you're not as far ahead as you think.*
A pause.
Then:
*She's right that I'm not as far ahead as I'd like.
But she doesn't know what I filed tonight.*
Emma stared at the message.
*What did you file?*
This time the pause was longer.
*Go to sleep, Emma.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day.*
She set the phone down.
Outside the study window, the Newport night was very still.
Somewhere on the far side of the estate, the cottage windows were dark.
Noah was asleep with his baseball mascot.
Natalie was, Emma hoped, finally resting.
May you like
Emma turned off the desk lamp and walked back through the dark corridor to her room.
She did not sleep for a long time.
