I told you the truth and I’ll tell it again.

I didn’t come here for thirty percent of your company.

I didn’t come here for forty million dollars.

I came here because my mother died alone and ashamed, and I could not stand to let our father’s wife die the same way.

That’s all.

That was always all.”

Chapter 20 — Her Hand on My Wrist

She took another step, and then she reached out and, very gently, closed her hand around my wrist — not to wrestle the paper away, she had not the strength for that and we both knew it, but simply to draw my hand back from the flame.