Chapter 18 - Victoria Without the Emeralds
Victoria arrived in a black coat and flat shoes.
For a moment, I looked at her feet.
Then I hated myself for noticing.
I knew better than most people what clothing could conceal.
Camille led her into the conference room.
I remained seated.
My ankle had improved, but not enough to reward pride.
Victoria looked at the chair opposite me.
“May I?”
“Yes.”
She sat.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “I’m not here to ask you to help my father.”
“Good.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I deserved that.”
“I wasn’t offering it as a lesson.”
She looked down.
There were no emeralds at her throat.
No audience.
No Alexander.
Without those things, she looked younger and less certain.
Not innocent.
Human.
Victoria supplied correspondence through her attorney.
Vivienne had worked with a cultural foundation that received support from businesses associated with Richard Sterling.
The relationship did not prove misconduct.
It did explain why Vivienne knew more about my mother’s former studio and debts than she had admitted.
Victoria had discovered the emails while addressing her own financial affairs after her father’s conviction.
Some concerned old archives.
Others concerned the market value of Elena Rostova’s name after my gala performance.
One message described my return as a chance to regularize unresolved rights.
I read the phrase.
Regularize.
A word that made taking something sound like tidying it.
“Why bring this to me?” I asked.
Victoria folded her hands.
“Because Vivienne contacted me.”
“For what?”
“A statement about the first gala.”
I went still.
“What statement?”
“That you and Alexander planned the dance and the breakup beforehand.”
“That’s false.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t know much about me that night.”
“No,” she said. “But I know what surprise looks like. I know what humiliation feels like. None of it was rehearsed.”
I studied her.
She had every reason to let the lie stand.
Perhaps she had other reasons to stop it.
People rarely arrived with only one motive.
“Did you refuse?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victoria stared at the table.
“Because I’m tired of being useful to men and women who call it loyalty.”
The answer hurt somewhere I had not expected.
I did not offer friendship.
She did not ask.
Camille asked questions about the documents.
Victoria answered within what she knew.
There would be follow-up.
Verification.
Original files.
No one treated a change of tone as proof.
As she prepared to leave, Victoria looked at me.
“I called you something disgusting.”
“Yes.”
“I meant to make the room agree you were smaller than me.”
I said nothing.
She swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
For the first time, she sounded as though she understood that an apology was not a request for my comfort.
“Thank you for saying it.”
Her eyes filled.
Then she nodded and left.
Afterward, I sat quietly.
Camille gave me time.
“Do you believe her?” she asked.
“About the documents?”
“About the apology.”
“I believe she was ashamed.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
I had learned not to demand that one honest feeling solve every dishonest act.
That evening, Alexander and I walked slowly through a quiet part of the park.
He matched my pace without making a performance of it.
I told him Victoria had visited.
He listened.
Then he said, “I owe her a more private apology than the public ending I gave her.”
I looked up.
“For ending it?”
“For making a spectacle of something I should have addressed directly.”
I considered that.
Then I nodded.
He could acknowledge hurting her without regretting loving me.
That distinction mattered.
Later, Camille sent one more document from Victoria’s files.
It listed an archive consultation arranged years earlier.
The client was the Blake family.
The subject was Elena Rostova.
I stared at the date.
My mother had still been alive.
Alexander had told me his grandmother arrived with a violin case and built her life through music.
May you like
Now her family name appeared beside my mother’s history.
For the first time, the past was reaching toward us from both directions.
