Chapter 5: The Conversation Upstairs
The rooftop garden was warm with candlelight and the low sound of a string quartet playing something Grant didn't recognize.
Camille was standing near the railing with a glass of champagne, looking out over the lake.
She turned when she heard him, and her face arranged itself into the particular expression she wore at events like this — composed, gracious, ready.
Then she looked at him more carefully.
"You're not going to propose tonight," she said.
It wasn't a question.
Grant stopped beside her.
Below them, the city moved.
"Camille, I'm sorry."
She turned back to the lake.
A long moment passed.
"How long have you known?"
"That I wasn't certain?
For a while." He paused.
"That I couldn't go through with it — tonight."
She nodded slowly, the way someone nods when they are confirming something they already suspected.
"My father is going to be furious."
"I know."
"He'll say you wasted our time.
He'll make it about the capital."
"He probably will."
Camille set her champagne glass on the railing.
She didn't look angry.
She looked, if anything, tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.
"Can I ask you something honestly?"
"Yes."
"Was there someone else?
Before tonight, I mean.
Not just tonight."
Grant looked at her.
She deserved the truth, and she deserved it plainly.
"There was someone.
Six years ago.
I thought it ended.
It didn't end the way I was told it did."
Camille was quiet for a moment.
"Is she here tonight?"
"She works in the restaurant downstairs."
Something crossed Camille's face — not quite hurt, not quite surprise.
Something more like recognition.
"I always felt like I was the practical choice," she said.
"I told myself that was enough.
That practical choices build good lives." She picked up her glass again.
"I think I was trying to convince myself as much as you."
"You deserve someone who isn't trying to convince himself."
"Yes." She almost smiled.
"I do."
Her father appeared at the far end of the garden.
Richard Redford was a broad man with a board member's instinct for reading a room, and he read this one in approximately four seconds.
"Camille." His voice was careful.
"Is everything all right?"
"We need a few more minutes, Dad."
He looked at Grant.
His expression did not change, but his shoulders set.
"Take your time." He walked back toward the group.
Camille turned to Grant one last time.
"Whatever happened downstairs — whatever she is to you — don't let anyone manage it for you this time." Her voice was quiet and entirely without bitterness.
"You've been managed long enough."
She picked up her glass and walked toward her father.
Grant stood at the railing alone for a moment.
The lake was dark and steady below.
He thought about the envelope in his jacket pocket.
He thought about Tessa's hand on his wrist.
He thought about Milo watching Eleanor from across the restaurant with those old, careful eyes.
He took the ring box from his breast pocket and set it on the railing.
Then he went back downstairs.
He didn't take it with him.
But when he stepped out of the elevator, the restaurant had changed.
Eleanor was seated at Tessa's table.
The boys were still in the corner booth.
Miles had moved to the outside edge of the seat, his small body positioned between his brothers and the adults, watching.
Tessa's face was white.
Grant crossed the room in twelve steps.
"What are you doing?" he said to his mother.
Eleanor looked up without urgency.
"Sitting down." She folded her hands on the table.
"We were just getting acquainted."
Tessa's eyes met his.
The fear from earlier had not gone.
It had simply gone quiet, the way fear goes quiet when someone has decided to hold their ground anyway.
"She told the boys she's their grandmother," Tessa said.
The word landed in the middle of the table like something dropped from a height.
May you like
Miles looked straight at Grant.
"Are you our dad?"
