Chapter 2 - The Eighty-Thousand-Dollar Question
For several seconds, no one moved.
The city glowed outside the windows.
Traffic flowed dozens of floors below.
Inside the penthouse, the silence became almost physical.
Maya was the first to speak.
“What do you mean he knows my mother?”
Marcus looked at David.
David did not answer immediately.
“Elena Carter,” Maya repeated. “My mother. Why does that name mean something to you?”
David’s expression had changed completely.
The relaxed sarcasm was gone.
So was the guarded confidence.
For the first time since Maya arrived, he looked genuinely unsettled.
Marcus ended the call.
“David.”
“What exactly did they say?”
“The hospital billing department was verifying payment authorization. Maya had apparently listed your office number after I submitted the preliminary guarantee.”
Maya frowned.
“You already submitted it?”
Marcus nodded.
“I didn’t want the surgery delayed while David decided.”
Maya stared at him.
“That is either the nicest thing anyone has done for me this month or extremely presumptuous.”
“Both can be true.”
David stepped closer.
“Why did they mention Elena?”
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Because the administrator recognized the Prescott name.”
David’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“He asked whether this was related to the old Prescott Foundation case.”
Maya stared at David.
“What case?”
David looked toward the windows.
Years of memories seemed to pass behind his eyes.
Finally he said, “Your mother worked for my father.”
Maya blinked.
“What?”
“Years ago.”
“She never told me that.”
“She probably had reasons.”
“What reasons?”
David hesitated.
Maya’s suspicion sharpened.
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
“That pause.”
“What about it?”
“Every man tonight keeps pausing before answering me.”
Marcus muttered, “She notices everything.”
Maya ignored him.
“What happened between my mother and your family?”
David walked toward the bar but did not pour anything.
“My father built the original company before I took over.”
“I know.”
“He had hundreds of employees.”
“Was my mother one of them?”
“Not exactly.”
David looked at her.
“She worked in financial administration for one of his contractors.”
Maya frowned.
“That doesn’t explain why the hospital remembered her name twenty years later.”
“No.”
“So explain it.”
David’s fingers rested against the edge of the counter.
“My father was investigated.”
Maya waited.
“For what?”
“Accounting irregularities.”
Marcus added quietly, “A large amount of money disappeared.”
Maya looked back at David.
“And my mother?”
“She discovered something.”
“What?”
David shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Maya laughed without humor.
“You don’t know?”
“I was nineteen.”
“But you knew her name.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
David’s gaze hardened.
“Because my father said she ruined him.”
Maya stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“The investigation nearly destroyed the company. My father blamed your mother for starting it.”
Maya took a step backward.
“No.”
“I’m telling you what he believed.”
“My mother is the most honest person I know.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t.”
“She worked two jobs for years.”
“I believe you.”
“She spent half my childhood calculating whether we could afford groceries.”
“Maya—”
“If she stole money from a billionaire, she did an absolutely terrible job keeping it.”
David almost smiled despite the tension.
“You’re right.”
That slowed her down.
“What?”
“You’re right.”
David stepped away from the bar.
“My father believed many things that later turned out to be wrong.”
“Was the money ever found?”
“No.”
“Was my mother charged?”
“No.”
“Then why did he blame her?”
“Because she disappeared immediately after the investigation began.”
Maya’s face changed.
“She didn’t disappear.”
David watched her.
“She raised me.”
“Under Carter?”
“That’s our name.”
David looked toward Marcus.
Marcus understood immediately.
“I’ll pull the archived records.”
Maya shook her head.
“No. Wait.”
Both men looked at her.
“I came here because my mother needs surgery. I did not come here to discover that she somehow has a secret history with a billionaire family.”
David’s voice softened.
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Probably not.”
That answer irritated her less than she expected.
She rubbed her forehead.
“What happens now?”
“With the surgery?”
“Yes.”
David answered immediately.
“I’ll pay.”
Maya looked up.
“Just like that?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t even know why I’m here anymore.”
“I know exactly why you’re here.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
He held her gaze.
“You’re here because you’re terrified of losing your mother.”
Maya stopped.
David continued.
“And you’re willing to swallow your pride long enough to do something you hate because she matters more than your pride.”
Her eyes burned.
She hated that he understood.
“I’ll repay you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.”
“I can eventually.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
David studied her.
“Fine.”
Maya blinked.
“Fine?”
“You can repay me.”
“How?”
“Dinner.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“Stay for dinner.”
“That’s your repayment plan?”
“For tonight.”
Maya narrowed her eyes.
“You are very strange.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By women who leave every morning?”
David’s expression changed slightly.
Marcus suddenly became fascinated with his phone.
Maya noticed.
“Oh.”
David sighed.
“You ask too many questions.”
“And you answer too few.”
“That’s intentional.”
Dinner was quieter than either expected.
Maya had assumed David would spend the evening showing off.
Instead he asked about her mother.
Her job.
Her childhood.
Her degree in interior architecture.
She learned he hated olives, rarely watched television, and secretly read biographies of failed entrepreneurs because he found their mistakes more useful than success stories.
At one point she looked around the enormous dining room.
“Can I tell you something?”
“No.”
“I’m going to anyway.”
“I assumed.”
“This place looks like a luxury hotel lobby.”
David stopped eating.
“That’s insulting.”
“It has no personality.”
“It has furniture.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“I paid someone an unreasonable amount of money to decorate it.”
“They robbed you.”
Marcus, eating at the opposite end of the table because Maya insisted he join them, coughed into his napkin.
David looked at him.
“You’re fired.”
Marcus nodded.
“Understood.”
Maya smiled for the first time without fear.
And David felt something dangerous.
Comfort.
Not attraction.
That was familiar.
Comfort was worse.
After dinner, Marcus returned with a tablet.
“I found the old records.”
David’s mood changed instantly.
Maya saw it.
“What?”
Marcus placed the tablet on the table.
“Most of the archived documents were sealed after the investigation.”
“Most?”
“There’s one internal memo.”
David picked it up.
Read.
Then stopped.
Maya watched his face.
“What does it say?”
David did not answer.
“David.”
He finally handed her the tablet.
The memo was dated eighteen years earlier.
It contained only a few lines.
But one sentence made Maya’s stomach tighten.
ELENA CARTER REQUESTED IMMEDIATE PROTECTION FOR HER DAUGHTER AFTER DISCOVERING FINANCIAL RECORDS CONNECTING VICTOR PRESCOTT TO AN UNDISCLOSED ACCOUNT.
Maya looked up.
“Protection?”
David’s face was pale.
Marcus continued.
“There’s more.”
He swiped to another page.
A handwritten note appeared.
David recognized the writing immediately.
His father’s.
David read aloud.
“If Elena ever contacts the family again, do not let David speak to her.”
Maya looked at him.
“Why?”
David shook his head.
Then Marcus opened the final scanned document.
A hospital birth record.
Maya stared at the name.
MAYA ELENA CARTER.
Then at the line beneath it.
Father: blank.
Mother: Elena Carter.
But attached to the file was an old legal notation.
Potential paternity inquiry requested by—
David stopped breathing.
Maya leaned closer.
The name was partially redacted.
Only the surname remained visible.
Prescott.
Maya slowly looked at David.
Neither of them spoke.
May you like
Because suddenly the eighty-thousand-dollar problem no longer seemed like the biggest secret in the room.
---
Related Stories
