Chapter 4 - Why Felix Put Us Together
Felix did not deny it.
That was somehow worse.
I placed the seating card on his kitchen counter.
“You knew.”
He stared at it.
“Yes.”
“Start talking.”
Felix poured water but did not drink it.
“Jonathan approached me three weeks before the gala.”
“Why?”
“He wanted Stellan and me in the same room.”
“And somehow I became the bait?”
“No.”
“You changed his seat to mine.”
“Only temporarily.”
I laughed.
“Excellent defense.”
Felix explained.
Jonathan believed the brothers would never voluntarily confront the past.
Stellan had agreed to attend because Harmon Capital was making a donation.
Felix would attend as my guest.
Jonathan changed the digital seating plan, hoping they would end up at the same table.
Felix discovered it.
Instead of deleting the change immediately, he printed the card.
“Why?”
“Because part of me wondered what would happen.”
“To whom?”
“To us.”
That answer frightened me.
Felix had loved me.
I still believed that.
But he had also been carrying guilt for six years.
Maybe some part of him had wanted discovery.
“Did you know Stellan would stand by the bar?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him what tuxedo you were wearing?”
“He already knew. Standard black tie.”
“So the kiss really was accidental.”
Felix hesitated.
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
He told me he had received a message shortly before the auction.
Vivian is looking for you near the bar.
He assumed I had sent it.
He went toward the bar.
Then another message arrived telling him I had gone toward the stage.
So he turned around.
Stellan, meanwhile, received a message supposedly from Jonathan asking him to wait near the same bar.
Someone had positioned both brothers within my search path.
“Jonathan?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“He showed me his phone.”
“Then who?”
Felix looked at me.
“My father.”
Conrad Harmon.
I met him two days later.
He invited all three of us to the Harmon family home in Connecticut.
Stellan initially refused.
Then I told him avoiding the conversation had already cost six years.
He looked at me.
“You always speak to strangers this way?”
“Only unusually stubborn ones.”
“I'm beginning to understand why Felix loved you.”
Loved.
Past tense.
I pretended not to notice.
The Harmon house looked less like a home than a museum where people happened to sleep.
Conrad Harmon waited in the library.
Seventy.
Silver hair.
Straight posture.
The sort of man who probably wore cuff links to breakfast.
He looked at his sons.
Then me.
“So you're Vivian.”
“I’m beginning to feel everyone knew me except me.”
That surprised a smile from Stellan.
Felix remained tense.
Conrad admitted sending the messages.
“Why?” Stellan asked.
“Because neither of you would speak.”
“You manipulated Vivian.”
“I created proximity.”
“That is exactly the type of sentence wealthy people use when they don't want to say manipulated.”
All three men looked at me.
“What? I work with donors.”
Conrad almost laughed.
Then his expression changed.
“I am dying.”
The room went silent.
He clarified.
Heart failure.
Not tomorrow.
Maybe not even this year.
But enough that time had become measurable.
“I didn't want my sons to inherit my silence.”
Stellan's jaw tightened.
“You could have called.”
“You wouldn't answer.”
“Then write.”
“You return my letters.”
“Then leave me alone.”
Conrad nodded.
“I deserved that.”
Felix asked, “Why Vivian?”
Conrad looked at me.
“I didn't intend the kiss.”
“Comforting.”
“I intended an introduction.”
“To Stellan?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Jonathan told me something about her.”
I stiffened.
“What?”
Conrad walked to his desk.
He produced a folder.
Inside were documents from my nonprofit.
Funding records.
Years old.
My organization's arts program had once received a major grant.
From the Caroline Avery Foundation.
I looked up.
“Caroline?”
Stellan stared at the page.
“She had a foundation?”
“Established after her death,” Conrad said. “Using a portion of her estate.”
Felix looked confused.
“I never knew.”
“Neither did I initially.”
The foundation's largest early initiative had funded after-school arts programs.
Including the first program where I volunteered when I was nineteen.
That experience had led me into nonprofit work.
I stared at the documents.
Caroline, a woman I had never met, had indirectly shaped my life.
Conrad said, “When Jonathan told me who Vivian was, I thought perhaps coincidence was giving this family one final opportunity.”
Stellan's expression hardened.
“You engineered it.”
“Yes.”
“That makes it no longer coincidence.”
“Yes.”
For once, Conrad did not defend himself.
He handed Stellan another folder.
“I have transferred the remaining Caroline Avery Foundation assets into an independent trust. Neither Harmon Capital nor I control it.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because Caroline wanted transparency. I gave her the opposite.”
The old man looked smaller.
“I cannot apologize to her.”
Then he looked at Felix.
“And apparently my sons learned silence from me.”
Nobody spoke.
Eventually Stellan placed Caroline's blue letter on the desk.
He had finally read it.
He looked at Felix.
“I don't forgive you.”
Felix nodded.
“I know.”
“But I don't want another six years.”
Felix's eyes filled.
Neither brother hugged.
That would have been too easy.
Instead Stellan said, “Coffee next week.”
Felix nodded.
“Okay.”
It was somehow more meaningful.
Outside, I stood beside my car.
Felix approached.
“Can we talk?”
“We are talking.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did.
He looked scared.
“Are we still together?”
I wanted to say yes.
Because loving Felix had been easy.
But trusting him no longer was.
“I don't know.”
He nodded slowly.
“I understand.”
I touched his hand.
“I love you.”
Hope appeared.
Then I finished.
“But love and trust aren't interchangeable.”
The hope disappeared.
“I'll earn it back.”
“Don't do it for me.”
“What?”
“Become the person who tells the truth even when nobody is rewarding you for it.”
He looked at me for a long time.
Then stepped away.
I drove toward New York alone.
Halfway home, my phone rang through the car system.
Stellan.
“I found something in Caroline's letter.”
“What?”
“Your name.”
I almost missed my exit.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“She wrote about a girl named Vivian.”
My hands tightened around the wheel.
“Stellan, Caroline died six years before I met any of you.”
“I know.”
“Then how could she know me?”
A pause.
“She didn't know you.”
“What did she write?”
He read only one sentence.
A sentence that turned coincidence into something much stranger.
May you like
If the arts program survives, maybe that girl Vivian will someday understand why I fought for it.
And suddenly this story had started years before I ever kissed the wrong man.
