Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO REFUSED TO RETURN THE CARD
Alexander demanded the card back at 1:26 a.m.
I placed it on the table.
He looked surprised.
"That's it?"
"Yes."
He picked it up.
"You're not going to argue?"
"I don't need it anymore."
He stared at me.
"Do you understand that I can challenge every one of those charges?"
"I understand you can try. Naomi has already advised me that the auction's payment authorizations and the disputed spending need independent legal review. I'm prepared to address my responsibilities."
Alexander frowned.
"Then why do this?"
I looked toward the cold dinner.
"Because I spent two years believing that the only things you valued were things money could purchase."
He looked away.
"And tonight you proved it."
I held up the auction inventory.
"Only not in the way you expected."
---
By morning, the auction house had received a notice from Alexander's bank concerning the transactions.
The purchases were not beyond challenge.
Some were under review.
The auction house placed the items in secure storage pending confirmation of payment and title.
Naomi warned me that the situation could become expensive and complicated.
I knew.
I didn't feel triumphant.
The black card had opened a door.
But it was going to take more than spending money to walk through it.
---
At nine, Sophia Reed called me.
I almost ignored the number.
Then curiosity won.
"Hello?"
"Erin?"
Her voice was soft and beautifully controlled.
"This is Sophia."
"I know."
A pause.
"Alexander told me what happened."
"Did he?"
"He says you spent a fortune trying to embarrass him."
I looked out the window.
"What do you think?"
Sophia hesitated.
"I think there are more mature ways to handle marital problems."
I laughed.
"That's an interesting opinion coming from the woman who accepted an anniversary dinner invitation from another woman's husband."
Silence.
Then Sophia said, "Alexander and I have a history you don't understand."
"I'm sure you do."
"He loved me before he met you."
I closed my eyes.
For two years, those words would have devastated me.
Now they simply made me tired.
"Then he should have married you."
She inhaled sharply.
"Erin—"
"No, Sophia. I mean that. If he wanted a life with you, he should have chosen it honestly."
I looked toward the empty chair opposite me.
"He didn't need to marry me and spend two years making sure I understood I was second."
Sophia's voice hardened.
"You're being dramatic."
"Perhaps."
I paused.
"But I won't be an audience for whatever happens between you anymore."
I ended the call.
---
That afternoon, I returned to my old neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Before marrying Alexander, I had worked as an assistant curator at a small historical preservation center.
I loved old buildings.
Forgotten letters.
Family photographs.
The tiny details that connected ordinary people to history.
I gave up that job after Alexander suggested it was embarrassing for his wife to earn forty-six thousand dollars a year.
He said I could do charity work instead.
At the time, I believed he was being generous.
Now I wondered how many decisions I had made simply because I wanted him to approve of me.
I stopped outside the preservation center.
Its blue wooden door still needed painting.
A handwritten sign advertised an exhibition about immigrant-owned businesses along the East River.
I smiled.
Then stepped inside.
My former supervisor, Dr. June Wallace, stood behind the reception desk.
She looked up.
And nearly dropped her coffee.
"Erin?"
I laughed.
"Hi, June."
She hurried around the desk and hugged me.
"Where have you been?"
I hesitated.
"Married."
June stepped back.
She examined my face.
"That bad?"
I laughed again.
Then unexpectedly began crying.
---
An hour later, I told her about Mercer House.
The archive.
The trust.
The auction.
June listened carefully.
Then she retrieved an old exhibition catalog.
"Erin, I think you need to see this."
She opened it to a photograph dated 1978.
A woman stood outside Mercer House beside a group of schoolchildren.
Beneath the picture was a caption.
Eleanor Mercer announces permanent educational trust for the Riverside Arts Program.
I touched my grandmother's name.
June continued.
"The property was supposed to fund a public arts institution. There was a dispute after Eleanor died."
"What kind?"
"An administrator claimed the trust had been dissolved."
"Who?"
June turned the page.
A black-and-white photograph appeared.
A younger man in an expensive suit stood beside my grandmother.
I recognized his face from the portraits hanging in Alexander's estate.
William Grant.
Alexander's grandfather.
June lowered her voice.
"Erin, your grandmother spent the last five years of her life trying to prove that William Grant had no right to sell the property."
I stared at the photograph.
Then whispered, "Did she succeed?"
June shook her head.
"She died before the dispute was resolved."
I looked toward the window.
For two years, I had believed I was simply the poor woman a billionaire chose to marry.
May you like
Now I was beginning to suspect that my family had been standing in the path of the Grant fortune long before Alexander ever met me.
---
