“What?”

“Families generally don’t spend dinner hiding beneath furniture.”

Maisie whispered, “He’s right.”

One by one, the girls crawled out.

Juniper immediately stood beside my chair.

Brielle remained watchful.

Within less than a minute, their mother spotted them.

Relief flashed across her face before being replaced by confusion.

She excused herself from the two men and hurried toward us.

“Brielle. Tessa. Maisie. Juniper.”

Four guilty faces turned toward her.

“We’re okay, Mom,” Tessa announced.

The woman stopped beside the table.

Up close, I could see how tired she was beneath the polished exterior.

She looked to be in her late thirties.

“I am so sorry,” she said to me. “They know better than to bother strangers.”

Brielle immediately corrected her.

“He’s not a stranger anymore.”

Her mother closed her eyes for half a second.

“Brielle.”

“His name is Grant.”

That apparently made the situation worse.

I stood and offered my hand.

“Grant Calloway.”

The woman’s expression changed.

She knew the name.

“Meredith Sloan.”

We shook hands.

“Thank you for being patient with them.”

Before I could answer, Juniper proudly explained everything.

“He’s pretending to be our dad.”

Meredith froze.

I almost admired the precision with which a six-year-old could create chaos using seven words.

The Man Who Would Not Accept No

Warren Langford approached moments later.

He was probably in his mid-forties, wearing a tailored navy suit and the calm expression of someone accustomed to getting what he wanted without raising his voice.

Recognition flickered across his face when he saw me.

“Mr. Calloway.”

“Mr. Langford.”

We had never met, but men in our circles often knew one another by reputation.

His eyes moved toward the girls.

“I hope they haven’t interrupted your evening.”

“Actually, they improved it.”

Juniper smiled triumphantly.

Meredith folded her arms.

“Warren, we’ll finish our discussion another day.”

He looked surprised.

“We were almost done.”

Her expression remained calm.

“You were almost done talking. I stopped participating several minutes ago.”

That interested me.

Warren took a breath.

“I’m only trying to help you.”

“I know you believe that.”

“Meredith—”

“Tomorrow, Warren.”

No shouting.

No dramatic confrontation.

Just one word spoken firmly.

For the first time, I saw him realize that pushing harder might create the opposite result.

He glanced at me, then at the girls.

“Tomorrow.”

He collected his coat and left with the other man.

Juniper leaned toward Brielle.

“See? It worked.”

Meredith looked at her.

“I heard that.”

Brielle sighed.

I had to hide a smile.

A Car That Would Not Start

I assumed that would be the end of our strange encounter.

Forty minutes later, I stepped outside and found Meredith standing beside a dark-blue sedan with the hood raised.

Light sleet was falling.

All four girls were sitting inside the vehicle.

Meredith stared at the engine as if personal disappointment might persuade it to start.

I stopped beside her.

“Have you tried intimidating it?”

She looked over.

“You again.”

“That sounds surprisingly ungrateful.”

She laughed despite herself.

“I have four children, a car that refuses to cooperate and five percent battery left on my phone. Gratitude is temporarily unavailable.”

I called my driver, Declan, who carried a portable starter in the SUV.

Within minutes, the girls were sitting inside my warmer vehicle while he worked.

Meredith remained beside me.

“You don’t have to help.”

“I know.”

She studied me.

“What exactly did my daughters tell you?”

“Enough to understand that they dislike Langford.”

Her gaze dropped.

“Warren has never mistreated them.”

“I didn’t assume he had.”

She seemed relieved by that answer.

“Their father, Graham, passed away three years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded.

“Warren was Graham’s closest friend. They founded Sloan-Langford Development together almost twenty years ago.”

That explained a great deal.

After Graham was gone, Warren had helped Meredith understand the company, the estate and dozens of decisions she had never expected to make alone.

At first, she had appreciated him.

Then the help had slowly turned into direction.

And direction had become pressure.

The Property Everyone Wanted

Six months earlier, Warren had started insisting Meredith sell a property called Hawthorne House.

I knew it immediately.

It was an old brick building on Chicago’s North Side. Part of it housed an after-school reading program, another section provided inexpensive studios for local artists, and several small nonprofit organizations rented offices there.

The surrounding neighborhood had become much more valuable in recent years.

Developers would pay heavily for the land.

“Warren says selling it would solve several problems for the company,” Meredith explained.

“And you disagree?”

“Graham never wanted it sold.”

That distinction mattered.

“Did he leave that instruction in writing?”

She shook her head.

“That’s the problem.”

Company records suggested Hawthorne House belonged to the business partnership.