Chapter 9 Margaret’s Opening Move
The invitation arrived through Delphine two mornings later.
It was a handwritten card.
That felt almost strangely old-fashioned in a house that seemed to run on screens, schedules, security systems, and digital everything.
Alex turned the card over in his hand.
The paper was thick.
Cream-colored.
His name had been written across the front in careful black ink.
Mr. Alex Tailor.
He looked at Delphine.
“Who still writes invitations by hand?”
“Mrs. Voss does.”
“Of course she does.”
Delphine’s expression remained professional, but Alex thought he saw the faintest hint of amusement.
“She has requested your company for lunch.”
Alex looked down at the card again.
“Requested?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a polite way of saying summoned, isn’t it?”
Delphine didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Margaret Voss was requesting Alex’s company for lunch at her residence.
It was a smaller house on the far side of the estate, but no less impressive than the main house.
Alex had passed it several times without realizing anyone actually lived there.
He looked at Elena.
She was sitting across from him at breakfast, scrolling through her phone.
She read the invitation when he handed it over.
Her expression changed immediately.
“You don’t have to go.”
Alex raised an eyebrow.
“She invited me.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to accept.”
Elena placed the card on the table.
She was still guarded around Alex after what had happened with the locked wing.
But this time, she seemed to genuinely mean it.
“Margaret doesn’t do anything without a reason.”
She paused.
“And the reason is rarely generous.”
Alex leaned back.
“What happens if I don’t go?”
“She’ll probably assume you’re hiding something.”
“I am.”
Elena looked at him.
“What?”
“I don’t know anything.”
That almost made her smile.
“That’s not what she’ll think.”
Alex picked up the invitation again.
“I think I should go.”
Elena studied him.
“Why?”
“Because if I’m going to survive this family, I need to understand them.”
He looked at her.
“All of them. Even the ones who’d rather I didn’t exist.”
Elena was quiet.
Then she nodded.
“Be careful.”
“With Margaret?”
“With everyone.”
Alex slipped the invitation into his pocket.
“That’s becoming the family motto.”
“It should be.”
Margaret received him in a sunroom overlooking the garden.
The room was bright and elegant, with large windows on three sides.
Everything outside was perfectly maintained.
Every hedge looked trimmed to the same height.
Every flower seemed to be exactly where it was supposed to be.
Even the stone paths were spotless.
Alex had begun to realize that nothing on the Voss estate happened by accident.
Margaret was already seated at a table set for two.
She wore a pale blouse and dark trousers.
No jewelry except a watch.
She looked less like a grieving daughter and more like someone preparing for a business meeting.
Her eyes followed Alex as he approached.
She was studying him.
Not admiring him.
Not welcoming him.
Studying him.
Like she was trying to decide whether he was a threat.
“Mr. Tailor.”
She gestured toward the empty chair.
“Sit.”
Alex sat.
A server appeared almost immediately and poured water into his glass.
Alex thanked him.
Margaret watched the exchange.
“You’ve become accustomed to being waited on rather quickly.”
Alex looked at her.
“I’m still trying to remember where the kitchen is.”
For half a second, Margaret’s expression softened.
Then it disappeared.
“I promise the food, at least, is honest.”
She glanced at the table.
“Whatever else about this lunch turns out to be.”
Alex looked at the meal in front of him.
It was more food than he was used to seeing at one time.
There were several courses arranged neatly across the table.
He wasn’t sure which fork he was supposed to use.
He decided not to worry about it.
“I appreciate the invitation.”
“Don’t.”
Margaret’s smile was thin.
There was no warmth behind it.
“It wasn’t kindness.”
Alex nodded.
“I figured.”
She picked up her glass.
“I wanted to look at you properly.”
Her eyes moved over him.
“Without an audience.”
Alex held her gaze.
“And decide for myself what exactly my father saw in a man he’d apparently never met.”
“I don’t know what he saw either.”
Alex leaned back.
“I’ve been trying to figure that out since the moment Reyes called me.”
Something changed in Margaret’s expression when he said Reyes’s name.
It was quick.
So quick Alex wasn’t sure he’d seen it.
“Simon has been this family’s attorney for over thirty years,” she said.
“Longer than I’ve been an adult.”
She looked down at her plate.
“My father trusted him completely.”
She paused.
“Right up until the end.”
Alex listened.
Margaret’s tone had changed.
It wasn’t anger anymore.
It was uncertainty.
That surprised him.
She seemed like someone who always knew what she believed.
But now, for the first time, she sounded as though she wasn’t sure.
“I spent my entire life believing that trust was earned,” she continued.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the stem of her glass.
“Lately, I’ve started to wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
Margaret looked toward the garden.
“Whether my father was entirely the man I thought he was during his final year.”
Alex waited.
“Whether the choices he made—this will, this arrangement…”
Her eyes returned to him.
“You.”
She paused.
“Were actually his.”
Alex frowned.
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
“Because my father changed.”
“How?”
“He became secretive.”
Margaret’s voice lowered.
“He stopped telling me things.”
Alex thought about the locked east wing.
The nursery.
Elena’s reaction.
He said nothing.
Margaret continued.
“He began meeting people I didn’t know. Making decisions without discussing them with the family. Changing parts of the estate.”
She took a slow breath.
“And then he wrote a will that left nearly everything to you.”
Alex shifted in his chair.
“I’m not asking you to trust me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Her answer was immediate.
Alex almost smiled.
“At least you’re honest.”
“I don’t have much use for pretending.”
“Neither do I.”
Margaret studied him.
For the first time, there was something almost like respect in her expression.
Then it disappeared.
“Do you know what bothers me most?”
Alex shook his head.
“You didn’t even know my father.”
“No.”
“You never worked for him.”
“No.”
“You weren’t part of this family.”
“No.”
“And yet, in the space of a single document, you became more important to him than the children he spent his life raising.”
Alex looked down at his plate.
“I don’t know why.”
Margaret’s voice hardened.
“And that is precisely the problem.”
She placed her fork down.
Slowly.
“You didn’t earn this inheritance, Mr. Tailor.”
Alex’s jaw tightened.
He looked back at her.
“Whatever you tell yourself about hard work, warehouses, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, you didn’t earn a trillion-dollar company.”
“I never said I did.”
“Someone gave it to you.”
She held his gaze.
“For a reason neither of us understands yet.”
Alex sat very still.
He had heard versions of this accusation since the day Reyes had called him.
You didn’t earn it.
You don’t belong here.
You don’t understand what you’ve been given.
At first, the words had made him feel defensive.
Now they mostly made him tired.
“I know I didn’t build Voss Global,” he said.
Margaret raised an eyebrow.
“But I also didn’t ask Julian to leave it to me.”
“No.”
“I didn’t ask him to make me his heir.”
“No.”
“And I didn’t ask to be engaged to Elena.”
Margaret’s expression shifted at that.
“Perhaps not.”
“But I’m here.”
Alex leaned forward slightly.
“And whether you like it or not, I’m going to figure out why.”
Silence settled between them.
Margaret looked at him for several seconds.
Then she picked up her glass.
“I intend to find out what that reason is before I let you keep it.”
Alex stared at her.
“That sounds like a threat.”
He didn’t look away.
Something in him refused to.
Maybe it was the same stubbornness Priya had always called the most Alex thing about him.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to be intimidated at his own table.
Even if the idea of calling it his own still felt strange.
Margaret’s expression didn’t change.
“It’s an observation.”
She picked her fork back up.
“Whether it becomes a threat depends entirely on what you do next.”
She began eating.
Just like that, the conversation was over.
Alex looked at his plate.
For several seconds, he didn’t move.
Then he picked up his fork.
Margaret didn’t look at him again.
He took a bite.
The food was excellent.
That almost annoyed him.
He had been expecting some kind of interrogation, not a meal that tasted like it belonged in a restaurant with a waiting list.
After a moment, Margaret spoke again.
“Eat your lunch, Mr. Tailor.”
Alex looked up.
“Whatever else is true, you look like you haven’t eaten properly in days.”
He almost laughed.
“That’s probably true.”
Margaret glanced at him.
“Why?”
Alex shrugged.
“It’s been a strange week.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
He took another bite.
“It isn’t.”
For the first time, Margaret looked almost human.
Not softer.
Just tired.
“My father had a way of making strange weeks last for years.”
Alex stopped eating.
He looked at her.
Margaret seemed to realize what she’d said.
She lowered her eyes.
“Finish your lunch.”
Alex didn’t ask another question.
Not because he was no longer curious.
Because he had learned something important.
Margaret might distrust him.
She might even want him gone.
But she was afraid of something too.
And Alex was beginning to suspect that everyone in this family was afraid of something.
He just didn’t know what it was yet.
