I sat with her, bought her family a warm meal, and listened as she told me what had happened.
The foundation approved six months of housing assistance while she finished her vocational nursing program.
When I came home that evening, Harold noticed the change in me at once.
“You don’t need any of this anymore, do you?” he said bitterly.
“You don’t need this house, you don’t need my money, and you don’t need me.”
Before I could answer, a courier arrived with a thick cream-colored envelope — a formal invitation to the annual gala of the Parsons Family Charity Foundation.
Beneath my name were two bold words: Keynote Speaker.
The last page explained that Cora’s will would be read publicly that evening, along with the real reason Nathaniel had bid two million dollars for me at the auction.
Harold read it over my shoulder, and his hands began to tremble.
“Anastasia,” he said uneasily, “there’s something about that foundation I never told you.”
In the silence that followed, I finally understood the secret didn’t belong to Nathaniel and Cora alone.
My own husband had been hiding a large part of the truth for years.
Chapter 9 — What Harold Knew
“What do you actually know about that foundation?” I asked. He shut the kitchen door behind him, looking like a man who had broken something beyond repair.
“Five years ago, my company tried to buy the downtown property where one of their main shelters sits,” he admitted.