“My attorney will want to look these over first,” I said.

Her hand came down flat on the marble, a soft violent sound.

“You don’t need lawyers to deal with your own family.”

Ivan drifted in from the hall on cue, hands in his pockets, and looked at me with an expression I’d have called cold if I hadn’t already heard how much colder he could be.

“What are you so afraid of, Meredith?”

I lifted my eyes to his and let him see, for just a second, that the tired woman was not in the room.