The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 838

In the Tiffany yard, under every light in the house, nobody moved. Even the ambulance men had frozen with Preston's stretcher halfway up the steps.

"He isn't?" The Baroness said it the way she named a price she would not pay. "Since when do you tell me what happens in my house?"

"Since tonight, Grandmother."

Serena crossed the stones and stood beside Alex. She did not look at him. She held the leather folder in both hands, tight enough to bend it.

"Can we do this inside? Or do you want the neighbours to hear it too?"

The Baroness's eyes cut across the street. The neighbours were already out on their steps, craning their necks, drawn by the ambulance lights. By morning, the Tiffany house would be the joke of the whole town.

She pivoted hard on her cane and marched inside. The family fell in behind her, the way they always did.

In the long dining room, the dinner candles had burned down to stubs.

The Baroness took the head of the table. Pauline stood at her shoulder with her little white cards. Marissa dropped into a chair and pulled her dressing gown tight. Patricia sat as far from Alex as the table allowed, an ice towel pressed to her face.

They had put Preston on the sofa by the fire, still on his stretcher, moaning softly.

Gideon stood by the door with his book. Nobody told him to sit.

Alex stood behind Serena's chair. He could smell candle smoke, and under it, cedar on her coat sleeve, carried home from the Halcyon offices.

Serena opened the folder and laid one paper on the table. A gold seal glinted at the bottom.

"This is the Halcyon contract," she said. "Every Halcyon house on the coast. Every hotel, every spa, every room. They'll use our scents. Tiffany scents. For ten years."

Marissa leaned forward so fast her chair creaked. "Ten years? How much?"

"Enough that this house never has to sell another painting."

The Baroness put on her glasses. She read the first page in silence. Then the second. Her finger stopped on the last line.

"Serena Tiffany," she read. "Director. In your own name."

"In my own name," said Serena. "Halcyon wouldn't sign it any other way. Not after Patricia."

Patricia ripped the towel down. "That's my contract! Grandmother gave it to me!"

"And Halcyon took it back," said Serena, "after the Seacrest."

"Because of him!"

"Because of you."

Serena didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to.

"Grandmother, I'm going to say this once. I'm tired. I've been signing papers since this morning. And I came home to find my husband standing in the yard like a dog waiting to be put in a box."

"Your husband," said Pauline pleasantly, "lives where the house rules say he lives. He sleeps by the dogs. That was always clear."

"Then it's going to stop being clear."

Serena laid her hand flat on the contract.

"I spent two years locked in the tower," she said. "Since I came out, I've slept in the garage wing by the kennels, on a bed with one leg made of books. I'm not doing it again. Not the tower. Not the kennels. Not the garage. I want a room in this house. Our room. Mine and Alex's."

"Absolutely not," Marissa snapped. "The main house is full! Where would we put Preston?"

"Preston has a room. He has two."

The Baroness's voice dropped. "And if I say no?"

"Then we leave." Serena said it simply, like telling the time. "Tonight. Alex and I. We'll find a flat by the harbour. And the contract comes with me, because it's in my name. Halcyon can buy its scents from Serena Tiffany, who used to live here."

The room went so quiet they could hear Preston breathing through his taped nose.

Alex looked down at the back of Serena's head. Her neck was very straight. Her hands were not quite steady on the paper. She was scared. She was doing it anyway. For him.

"You wouldn't dare," Patricia breathed.

"Try me."

Pauline's pen stopped. Marissa's mouth hung open. By the door, Gideon closed his book.

The Baroness took off her glasses and folded them, slowly. For a long moment she only looked at her granddaughter, as if seeing her for the first time in years.

Then she tapped her cane once on the floor.

"The east room," she said. "First floor, above the garden. Felicia will make it up tonight."

"Mother!" said Pauline.

"It's decided." The Baroness did not turn her head. "That's business, Pauline. Ten years of Halcyon is business."

Serena's shoulders dropped a little, as if she had been carrying something very heavy for a very long time and had just been allowed to set it down.

"Thank you, Grandmother. One more thing."

"There's more?"

"One more." Serena turned in her chair and looked around the table, face by face. "From tonight, nobody in this house calls Alex an idiot. Not to his face. Not behind his back. Not as a joke. He's my husband. Call him that, and you're calling me that."

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