Beatrice looked at Sadie's hovering hand. A sad, knowing smile crossed her face.
"Yes, Sadie," the billionaire said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I think I would like that very much."
The leather of the sofa groaned—a rich, deep sound of compressed air and animal hide—as Beatrice lowered herself onto it. She didn't sink; the cushions were firm, unforgiving, designed for brief waits rather than comfort.
Sadie stayed on her feet. She stood near the edge of the massive glass window, looking down. The city looked like a circuit board from up here: tiny, pulsing, irrelevant. Down there, she owed rent. Up here, the air was filtered, silent, and smelled faintly of lemon polish.
"Sit, Sadie," Beatrice commanded quietly. It wasn't a request.
Sadie reluctantly perched on the absolute edge of the opposite armchair. The leather felt cold through her thin jeans.
Beatrice leaned her cane against the armrest. She closed her eyes for a long moment, the pristine white bandage glaring against her papery skin. When she opened them, the fierce corporate titan was gone, replaced by a very tired old woman.
"He thinks I'm losing my mind," Beatrice said. She didn't look at Sadie; she looked at the empty space where her son had stood. "Richard... he sees a cane and a few misplaced keys, and he calculates the depreciation of my assets."
Sadie didn't know what to say to that. She picked at a frayed thread on the hem of her shirt. "Why did you go to the East Side? My diner? That whole street is garbage. Even the cops don't like walking it."
Beatrice turned her pale blue eyes toward the window. "Sixty years ago, it wasn't garbage. It was just poor. There's a difference." She pointed a trembling finger toward the glass. "Two blocks from your diner, there used to be a laundromat. Next to it was a tiny, windowless office above a butcher shop. It smelled constantly of bleach and rotting meat."
Sadie knew the building: it was a boarded-up husk now, covered in graffiti tags and smelling of urine.
"That was where I signed the incorporation papers for Hayes Global," Beatrice said, her voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "I was 22. I had a husband who drank his paycheck and a landlord who liked to turn off the heat in January to force us out. I built this company out of sheer, unadulterated spite."
Sadie stopped picking at her shirt. She looked at the frail billionaire, trying to overlay the image of a desperate 22-year-old girl in a freezing apartment. It wasn't hard; the grit was still there, calcified in her spine.