He was speaking low, the way people speak when they think the only person who matters can’t hear them.

“Let her nurse him a few months,” Ivan said.

“Once she’s recovered and the baby doesn’t need her so much — that’s when we take him.”

I did not move.

Some animal wisdom older than thought kept me exactly still, my eyes half-open on the ceiling, my breath even.

I was going to hear this.

Whatever it was, I was going to hear all of it.

Chapter 2 — He’s a Kingsley

A woman answered him, and I knew her voice before my mind would let me name it.

“And if Meredith refuses?”

Renata.

For two years Ivan had brought her to dinners and introduced her, hand at the small of her back, as his business partner. Renata handles our strategic side. I had poured this woman wine in my own dining room.

Ivan laughed — a small, dismissive breath of a laugh, the laugh of a man who has already counted the money on the table and knows it’s all his.

“Refuse with what?” he said.