Chapter 196:


    Isolde stood in silence. Her lips wouldn’t move.


    As the congregation filed out, the sun made a half-hearted attempt to break through the clouds and failed.


    “That went well,” Grayson murmured close to her ear as they stepped into the gray daylight. “Beatrice seems appeased.”


    “Is that all you care about?” Isolde asked, keeping her voice low. “Beatrice?”


    “I care about our future,” Grayson said. “And about unfreezing your mother’s ounts. Remember the deal.”


    “I remember,” Isolde said.


    They walked to the reception hall next door. It was time for the wake — coffee, sandwiches, and more acting.


    The reception hall hummed with low conversation. Grayson was in his element — charming the elderlydies, shaking hands with the businessmen, epting condolences with practiced grace.


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    Isolde stood by the coffee urn, feeling detached, watching him work the room. He was a shark in a tank of goldfish.


    Beatrice held court from a corner chair. Grayson made a point of checking in with her every ten minutes.


    Isolde’s phone buzzed in her purse. A text from And.


    I have the logs. It’s worse than we thought. Check your email when you can.


    She couldn’t check it now. Not with Grayson watching.


    Across the room, his expression shifted. He checked his watch, then his phone, and frowned. He made his way over to Isolde.


    “I have to go,” he said.


    Isolde blinked. “What? The reception just started. People are still arriving.”


    “Something came up. Urgent business. A merger in Europe — the partners are on a conference call.”


    “A merger,” Isolde repeated. “On a Sunday?”


    “Global markets never sleep, Isolde,” he said, with the practiced condescension of someone who had said it many times before. “You know that.”


    “Is it the merger?” Isolde asked, looking him dead in the eye. “Or is it the zipper?”


    Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”


    “I heard her, Grayson. On the phone. ‘It’s stuck.''”


    Grayson didn’t flush. He didn’t stammer. He simply went cold.


    “You’re hysterical,” he said. “Grief is making you hear things. I’m going to the office. Stay here and make excuses for me.”


    “No,” Isolde said.


    “What?”


    “I won’t make excuses for you. If you leave, you tell Beatrice yourself.”


    Grayson held her gaze for a moment, then turned and walked across the room to Beatrice. Isolde watched. He leaned down, whispered something close to her ear. Beatrice frowned, then gave a slow nod and waved her hand, releasing him.


    He had won. Again.


    Grayson walked back toward the door without so much as a nce at Isolde. He simply walked out, and the door swung shut behind him.


    A hand settled on her arm. Saul.


    “He’s gone?” Saul asked.


    “He has business,” Isolde said.


    “Business,” Saul scoffed. He coughed — a wet, rattling sound that came from somewhere deep. “Isolde. Look at me.”


    Isolde looked down at her uncle.


    “You are a Carson,” Saul said. “We build things. We fix things. But some things are too broken to fix. You have to scrap them and start over.”


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