Charlotte didn’t tell her mother she’d gone to Steele Downtown.
She told herself it was because Eleanor would overreact. Accuse her of sneaking behind her back. Use it as another example of her “impulsivity.”
Really, she didn’t tell her because she wanted one thing—*one thing*—that existed outside her mother’s line of sight.
One conversation. One hour. Hers alone.
It felt both pathetic and monumental.
“You’re humming.”
Mila’s voice floated in from the kitchen that evening as Charlotte diced carrots at the island.
“I am not,” Charlotte said.
“You are,” Mila said. “Something pop. Very bad. From the radio.”
“It’s stuck in my head,” Charlotte muttered.
Milo sat on a stool nearby, solemnly transferring peas from one bowl to another with a spoon. His tongue stuck out in concentration.
“Careful,” Charlotte said. “Slowly. Don’t let them roll away.”
He glanced up, eyes dancing. “What happens if they roll away?”
“They become pea-ple,” she said gravely.
He dissolved into giggles.
“Pea-ple!” he crowed.
“We’re going to need that joke in writing,” Mila said. “I will teach it to the playground mothers.”
“You hate the playground mothers,” Charlotte pointed out.
Mila shrugged. “They are good for gossip. Like your tabloids, but with more yoga pants.”
Charlotte smiled.
Dinner was simple. Pasta with vegetables, garlic bread, a glass of wine for her, sparkling water for Mila, milk for Milo.
As she twirled spaghetti around her fork, her eyes drifted to her phone on the counter.
Nothing from Dominic.
He’d walked her to the lobby after the tour. No lingering. No loaded looks, aside from one quick slide of his gaze over her mouth that made her swallow.
“Thank you for coming,” he’d said, voice polite. Neutral.
“Thank you for the…demonstration,” she’d replied.
She’d walked out into the humid street feeling like someone had shaken a snow globe inside her. Everything she thought she knew about him—about herself—was swirling.
Now, as Milo regaled her with a story about a pigeon that had tried to steal his cookie at the park, she forced her attention back to the table.
“Then I said, ‘No, pigeon, that’s my cookie,’ and Lina said—”
“Lina said maybe we should not shout at birds,” Mila put in.
“Birds are rude,” Milo informed her. “They poop on cars.”
“You’re not wrong,” Charlotte murmured.
Her phone buzzed.
Her stomach dipped.
She told herself not to look.
She looked.
Email. Not text.
From: *Eleanor Reid*.
Subject: *Aspen – Preliminary Board Feedback.*
Her appetite vanished.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, rising.
She stepped into the hallway and opened the message.
> We have reviewed Steele’s initial proposal. The board has concerns, as expected. They are, however, open to continued discussions, provided we can secure stronger protective terms on brand, data, and exit rights. > > > In light of your support for the partnership, I would like you to join the next negotiation session. Tomorrow. 2 PM. My office. Steele will be present with counsel. > > > Do not be late. And do not embarrass me.
That last line, as always, landed like a slap.
She typed:
> I’ll be there.
Then, after a beat:
> Thank you for including me.
No reply.
She leaned against the wall, breathing slowly.
Tomorrow.
More time in a room with him. With lawyers. With her mother.
She thought of his face on the roof when he’d said, *I didn’t know about him.*
She thought of her uncle’s words.
*This is your story. Not hers.*
“Charlotte?” Mila’s head poked around the corner. “Everything okay?”
She straightened.
“Yes,” she said, forcing a smile. “Just…work. Aspen stuff. Tomorrow will be…interesting.”
Mila’s gaze was sympathetic.
“Your mother?”
“My mother,” Charlotte confirmed.
“Want to run away?” Mila asked. “We can take Milo. Join circus.”
“Do circuses still exist?” Charlotte asked.
“In Brazil, yes,” Mila said. “We have better costumes.”
A laugh eased something tight in her chest.
“Tempting,” she said. “But for now…pasta.”
***
The next afternoon, the conference room off Eleanor’s office was full.
On one side of the long glass table sat the Reid contingent: Eleanor at the head, immaculately composed; Marie, the CFO, with her ever-present spreadsheet binder; James, the consultant; two board members; Charlotte, halfway down, notebook open, pen poised.
On the other side, the Steele delegation: Dominic, suit a shade darker than yesterday’s; a woman in a sharp gray dress who introduced herself as Gillian Marks, Steele’s general counsel; a younger man with a laptop—Sanjay, COO—and Julian, hovering near the end like a nervous satellite.
The air felt charged. Polite. Dangerous.
“Thank you all for coming,” James began in his soothing, moderator’s voice. “We’re here to explore whether a partnership between Reid and Steele on Aspen can be structured in a way that aligns incentives and protects both brands.”
“I thought we were here so Mr. Steele could make another pitch,” one of the older board members, Richard, muttered.
“Your time is valuable,” Dominic said smoothly. “I wouldn’t waste it if I didn’t think we had something real to offer.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll see.”
Gillian slid a revised term sheet across the table.
“We’ve adjusted our initial proposal based on your feedback through Mr. Whitman,” she said. “We’re prepared to lower our equity stake to twenty-five percent in exchange for a slightly higher management fee in the first five years. We’re also open to joint branding language that emphasizes Reid’s primacy.”
“‘Primacy,’” Richard repeated. “You make it sound like a war.”
“It’s not,” Gillian said pleasantly. “It’s a dance.”
Marie paged through the document.
“What about data?” she asked. “Guest information, loyalty profiles. We will not agree to any structure where Steele can mine our database for your own purposes.”
“Nor would we expect you to,” Gillian said. “Data would be walled. Shared only at the property level for operational needs. Macro learnings, like trend analysis, would be mutual. Neither party would have the right to export raw guest-level data for other uses.”
“And if you breach that?” James asked.
“Then you sue us into oblivion,” Gillian said, unfazed. “And you win. We’d give you that right.”
Charlotte watched her, impressed despite herself. Calm. Controlled. Clear.
She glanced at Dominic.
He wasn’t looking at the numbers.
He was watching her.
Heat crawled up her neck.
She forced her eyes back to the page, underlining a clause.
Exit rights. Brand standards. Non-competes.
They went line by line. Lawyers sparred politely. Finance people argued about discount rates and hurdle returns.
Every so often, Dominic cut through the noise with a simple point.
“Aspen won’t succeed if decisions take six months to clear a committee,” he said at one point. “We need authority on the ground.”
“And we won’t sign away the right to protect our brand,” Eleanor retorted. “There must be veto power on major experiential elements.”
“Define ‘major,’” he said.
They circled that for twenty minutes.
At one point, tempers flared.
“You’re asking us to open our kimono,” Richard snapped. “Why should we trust that you won’t walk away in three years once you’ve extracted what you want?”
“Because my name will be on the building too,” Dominic said, patience thinning. “I don’t do quick flips. We structure extension options. Performance-based. You want me to have skin in the game? Fine. I’ll put it there. But I’m not signing up for a forever marriage with no prenup. Neither should you.”
Charlotte scribbled notes, her mind racing ahead.
She saw it.
The way it could work.
Reid’s heritage and relationships. Steele’s agility and digital reach. Aspen as something new, not quite either but better than both.
She also saw the other layer.
His glances. His jaw tense when data about families came up. The way his hand tightened slightly when someone said “guests with children.”
He was…not okay.
She couldn’t blame him.
She was barely holding it together herself.
“Let me ask a more…intangible question,” James said halfway through. “Brand culture. Reid and Steele are…different creatures. One is old-world, one is new. One is vertically integrated, one more partnership-driven. How do we ensure our teams don’t clash?”
“Leadership,” Dominic said. “If the people at the top are aligned, the people below will follow.”
“And are we?” Eleanor asked coolly. “Aligned?”
He met her gaze.
“We both want Aspen to succeed,” he said. “We both want our brands to grow. We both want to not be in the news for a disastrous mountain failure. That’s alignment.”
“And if our definitions of ‘success’ differ?” she pressed.
“Then we negotiate,” he said. “Like we are now. Or we walk away. But I don’t think either of us is here because we enjoy wasting time.”
Her lip twitched.
Touché.
“Charlotte?” Marie said suddenly. “You’ve been quiet. You’ve seen Steele Downtown now. You know Aspen better than anyone at this table. Where do you stand?”
Every gaze swung to her.
Her pulse hammered.
She looked down at the term sheet.
The words blurred.
In her mind, she saw Milo at breakfast yesterday, cheerfully dipping toast in his yogurt. Saw Dominic on the roof, eyes dark when he’d almost said *him*.
She lifted her head.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that this partnership is…risky.” She ignored the faint tightening of her mother’s mouth. “We’re talking about giving operational control of our first truly new-concept property to someone outside the family. Outside our culture. That’s…unprecedented for Reid.”
“And?” Marie prompted.
“And,” she continued, “I think not doing it is riskier.”
Silence.
“You’ve all seen the numbers,” she went on. “We’re over budget. Behind schedule. The cost of catching up alone, with no change in approach, would be enormous. We’d be doubling down on a model that’s already showing cracks in our city properties.” She nodded toward Dominic. “Steele understands a guest we’re still trying to figure out. Younger. More…fluid. If we want Aspen to capture them, not just their parents, we need that expertise.”
“And you believe they won’t…overrun us?” one board member asked. “Turn Aspen into a Steele with a Reid sign slapped on the front?”
“If we’re smart about terms,” she said. “If we put real brand protections in place. If we choose to…trust, to some extent, instead of trying to control every fork on every table from a thousand miles away.”
Eleanor’s eyes frosted.
Charlotte met them anyway.
“You asked me to prove I could put the company first,” she said quietly. “This is me doing that. Even if it means swallowing some pride. Even if it means…sharing.”
Her mother studied her for a long moment.
“Noted,” she said finally.
It wasn’t praise. But it wasn’t dismissal either.
Gillian made a note.
Sanjay typed.
They dug back into the clauses.
By the time the meeting ended, three hours later, nothing was signed.
But the outlines of a deal had begun to take shape.
“We’ll revise and send a redline,” Gillian said, gathering her papers. “You’ll* no doubt butcher it. We’ll argue some more. Eventually we’ll arrive at something everyone hates equally. That’s how you know it’s fair.”
She smiled slightly.
Even Eleanor allowed the ghost of one.
“Mr. Steele,” James said, rising, “thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch when the board has had a chance to digest.”
“Of course,” Dominic said, standing as well. “Thank you all for considering.”
He shook hands.
Lingering a fraction longer with Charlotte.
“Ms. Reid,” he murmured.
“Mr. Steele,” she replied.
Her skin prickled where his palm met hers.
“Charlotte,” Eleanor’s voice cut in like a whip. “A word.”
Of course.
“Excuse me,” she said, extracting herself.
She followed her mother back into the main office, the heavy door shutting behind them.
“You handled yourself…adequately,” Eleanor said, moving to her desk.
It was the closest thing to a compliment she’d had from her in months.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said carefully.
“I do not appreciate being blindsided by your extracurricular meetings,” Eleanor added.
Ice slid down Charlotte’s spine.
She kept her face neutral. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You think I don’t know you went prancing off to Steele Downtown yesterday?” Eleanor asked. “Jess at the front desk posted a photo with you in the background. Our social media team flagged it within an hour.”
Charlotte’s stomach dropped.
“Oh,” she said weakly.
“Oh,” Eleanor mimicked. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t *lie*,” Charlotte protested. “You didn’t *ask.*”
“You told me yesterday you had ‘park time’ with your son,” Eleanor said. “You neglected to mention your morning hotel safari with Dominic Steele.”
“I did both,” Charlotte said. “Park in the morning, hotel mid-day. I can multitask.”
“This isn’t about your calendar,” Eleanor snapped. “This is about optics. You meeting him alone, on his turf, without counsel present—”
“It was a tour,” Charlotte cut in. “He wanted to show me his family programming. It was…useful. I needed to see how his team executes if I’m going to stand behind this deal.”
“And did he try to…execute you?” Eleanor asked with a curl of her lip. “On the pool deck, perhaps? Under the watchful eyes of his millennials?”
Heat flooded her face. “Mother.”
“Spare me your indignation,” Eleanor said. “You and I both know what he’s capable of. We’ve seen it. Personally or through the *Financial Times*.”
“Nothing happened,” Charlotte said stiffly. “We walked. We talked. That’s it.”
“Talked about what?” Eleanor asked. “Weather? Thread count? Your bastard child?”
Charlotte’s breath hitched.
“He doesn’t know,” she said.
“But you *want* to tell him,” Eleanor said. “I saw it all over your face when he grazed the topic today.”
She’d noticed that?
“Don’t deny it,” Eleanor went on. “You think you’re subtle. You’re not. Your…emotions…are all over you. Like fingerprints.”
“I kept my promise,” Charlotte said through clenched teeth. “I said nothing. I *have* said nothing. You asked for that, and I’ve done it, whether I agree or not.”
“For now,” Eleanor said. “But you’re…cracking. I can tell. You keep looking at him like a starving woman at a buffet.”
“Inappropriate metaphor,” Charlotte muttered.
“And he keeps looking at you like you’re dessert,” Eleanor continued mercilessly. “I will not have it. If you insist on staying in this negotiation, you will stay…*professional.* There will be no more private tours. No more one-on-one anything. If you meet him, you do it with people present. If he calls, you loop in Legal. If he texts—”
“He doesn’t text,” Charlotte lied.
Her phone, in her bag, buzzed.
They both looked at it.
Her face flamed.
Eleanor’s mouth went tight.
“Pathetic,” she said softly. “You’re smarter than this, Charlotte. Or I thought you were.”
Just like that, the almost-compliment from earlier turned to ash.
“Is that all?” Charlotte asked, her voice like glass.
“For now,” Eleanor said. “Oh, and… Tell your nanny I expect Milo here for dinner on Sunday. Seven p.m. Precisely.”
Shock punched through her.
“You…want him here?” she stammered.
“I may be a monster,” Eleanor said coolly. “But I’m not heartless. He is my grandson. I’d like to see him on occasion. Away from the paparazzi.”
Tears stung Charlotte’s eyes.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll…ask Mila to… Yes. We’ll be here.”
“Good.” Eleanor turned to her computer. “You may go.”
Charlotte walked out, the mix of emotions—hurt, relief, anger, hope—making her feel unsteady.
Back in the corridor, she pulled her phone from her bag.
One new message.
From: *Dominic Steele*.
> You did well in there. Board meetings are blood sport. You didn’t flinch.
Her lips twitched.
She typed:
> I’ve had practice.
His reply was swift.
> Yes. I imagine you have.
> Thank you for the tour yesterday. It was…illuminating.
> Anytime. There’s more I’d like to show you. Off the record.
Heat flared low in her belly.
She typed, deleted.
Typed again.
> That would be…unwise.
> Since when have you been a fan of wisdom?
Her fingers hovered.
She thought of Milo.
Of her mother’s threat.
Of her uncle’s quiet support.
Of Dominic on the roof, saying, *I didn’t know about him.*
She typed two words.
> People change.
She hit send before she could second-guess herself.
The three dots of his reply pulsed.
Then disappeared.
No new message came.
She stared at the screen a moment longer.
Then she slid the phone back into her bag and walked toward the elevator, shoulders back, chin up.
If there were fault lines cracking under her feet, she would pretend she didn’t feel them.
At least until Sunday.
When she would carry her secret into the lion’s den in the form of a wide-eyed, Lego-loving little boy who had no idea his existence was a battlefield.
***