Chapter 4: Everything He Already Knew
Maeve sat.
There was no other reasonable option.
Her legs had made the decision before her mind caught up.
Elias reached for his water glass.
Unhurried.
The conversation around the table had resumed — she could hear Ferraro's voice at the other end, something about a construction permit, laughter at the right moment — and no one was watching them now.
"How long have you known?" she asked.
She kept her voice low and her expression neutral, the way she had learned to do in seven years of working in rooms where she was not supposed to have opinions.
"Gabriel ran your name the morning Margaret called to say Sienna wouldn't be attending." He set the glass down.
"Maeve Donnelly.
Twenty-four.
Employed by the Ashford household since age seventeen.
One younger brother, currently a patient at Northwestern Memorial."
She said nothing.
"The dress is Sienna's," he continued.
"The pearls are also Sienna's.
The name Claire Ashford belongs to a cousin who moved to Portugal eleven years ago and has not returned." He turned the black onyx ring once around his little finger.
"Margaret is not a careful woman.
She is simply accustomed to people not looking closely."
"Are you going to have me removed?"
"From the dinner?"
"From any of it."
Elias looked at her directly for the first time since she had sat down.
His eyes were dark and entirely steady.
"That depends on what you tell me."
Maeve set her hands flat on the table.
"She said one dinner.
Smile, say little, leave when you leave.
In exchange, my brother's surgery costs are covered in full."
"And you agreed."
"I agreed."
"Why are you telling me this now instead of waiting to see if I already knew?"
"Because you already knew," she said.
"And lying to someone who already knows the truth is the one thing I've never been able to make myself do."
Something shifted in his expression.
Not much.
Enough.
"What did she tell you about me?" he asked.
"That you needed a fiancée for one evening.
That Sienna couldn't be that person anymore." Maeve paused.
"She didn't tell me why."
"Did you ask?"
"She said you knew what you needed to know.
I recognized that as a non-answer, but I was out of options."
Across the table, Ferraro's wife leaned toward them with a warm smile.
"Claire, how are you finding Chicago?
Elias tells us you've been abroad."
Maeve smiled back.
"It's good to be home," she said.
"I'd forgotten how much I missed the winters."
Ferraro's wife laughed.
The moment passed.
Elias said nothing for the rest of the appetizer course.
He spoke easily with the men on his left, asked Ferraro a question about the permit timeline, accepted a refill of his water.
He was, Maeve observed, extraordinarily good at being in a room.
When the main course arrived, he said quietly, without looking at her, "My driver will take you home after dinner.
Not to the Ashford house.
To your own address."
"I don't have my own address at the moment.
I live in the Ashford house."
A pause.
"Then he'll take you somewhere safe for the night.
We'll sort the rest tomorrow."
"Mr.
Marchetti—"
"Elias."
She stopped.
"You came into this room to protect your brother," he said.
"I'm not going to punish you for that." He finally looked at her again.
"But Margaret is going to find out that I know.
And when she does, she's going to make your position in that house very uncomfortable."
Maeve thought about the way Margaret had smiled in the kitchen.
The way Sienna had turned toward the window.
"She already has," she said.
He nodded once, as if that confirmed something he had already suspected.
The dinner ended at ten.
Ferraro shook Elias's hand at the door and told Claire it was a pleasure, and that she should come to the next one.
His wife kissed her on the cheek.
In the car afterward, Elias said nothing for several minutes.
The city moved past the windows.
Then: "Gabriel is going to ask you some questions tomorrow.
About the Ashford household.
About what you've seen and heard in seven years."
Maeve looked at him.
"What kind of questions?"
"The kind," he said, "that suggest I was already looking at that family before any of this started."
The car turned north.
Maeve stared at the passing streetlights and understood, for the first time, that she had not walked into a simple dinner.
May you like
She had walked into something that had already been in motion.
And she had no idea yet which direction it was moving.
