Chapter 4 - The Ultimatum
Maya walked back into the main dining room, her heels muffled by the thick Turkish wool rug. The atmosphere at Table 14 was stifling.
Her mother’s bread roll remained untouched, a pale, lonely cylinder on the pristine white ceramic plate. Cassandra’s phone was face down now, its screen dark, though her posture remained rigid, defensive, and thoroughly unimpressed. Richard sat with his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line.
Maya did not sit. She stopped two feet from the table, keeping her hands clasped lightly in front of her blazer.
“Is there something wrong with the service?” Maya asked. “The second course is being plated now.”
Richard’s mouth tightened into a thin, bloodless slash.
“You can help us by acting like a daughter instead of a hotel employee,” Richard snapped.
A passing server carrying a tray of wine glasses glanced their way. Maya gave the server a microscopic nod, signaling everything was under control, before turning her full, unflinching gaze back to her father.
“I am working,” Maya said. “If you wanted a family reunion, you picked the wrong venue, the wrong decade, and the wrong approach.”
Helen reached across the table, her manicured fingers grazing Maya’s wrist like a spider touching silk.
“We just want to talk, baby,” Helen murmured, deploying the ancient, rusted weapon of maternal emotional blackmail. “We’ve missed you so much. You have no idea how hard these seven years have been on your father.”
Maya gently, deliberately slid her wrist away from her mother’s touch. The movement was clean, emotionless, and final.
“My absence was self-inflicted by your choices,” Maya said quietly. “Let’s not rewrite history.”
Richard slammed his palm against the table—not hard enough to knock over the water goblets, but hard enough to make the silverware dance against the linen.
“Derek is being made partner next month,” Richard said, his voice rising dangerously close to the threshold of public scene-making.
Maya remained silent. She let the silence stretch, forcing him to fill it.
“That changes things for this family,” Richard continued, his chest puffing out with ancestral pride. “Socially. Professionally. People will be watching how we present ourselves. High-society circles in Atlanta don’t tolerate half-measures.”
Cassandra lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing with smug validation. “They’re looking at a house in Ardsley Park,” she chimed in, her voice dripping with entitlement. “A real historic estate. Five bedrooms, carriage house, original moldings. The kind of property that fits this next stage of Derek’s career.”
There it was. The mask had finally slipped off entirely.
Not an apology. Not an embrace. Not even a token inquiry about how she had built her life.
A bill.
Helen rushed in softly, playing the good cop to Richard’s warden. “We only need a little help bridging the gap until Derek’s partnership bonus comes through, sweetheart. Just a temporary bridge.”
“How much?” Maya asked. The words left her mouth before she could even filter them, though she already knew the answer.
May you like
Richard didn’t blink.
“Sixty thousand dollars.”
