Nobody noticed her leave. Not yet, but somebody was about to.
The game room was the one place in the mansion Nathaniel still felt like himself. It had been his father's favorite room decades ago, back when the Cole name meant something smaller and warmer. Dark wood paneling, a hand-carved pool table older than Nathaniel himself—a place once filled with laughter instead of leverage.
Now Marcus Whitfield leaned against that same table, chalking a cue with theatrical slowness, an audience of investors and socialites gathering at the doorway to watch the spectacle unfold.
"Come on, Cole," Whitfield said, grinning. "One shot. You make it, I sign the papers tonight. Full terms in your favor. You miss..." He shrugged, letting the sentence hang. "Well, we renegotiate. My way."
It was a cruel little game, and everyone in the room knew it. Whitfield hadn't chosen pool because he loved the sport; he'd chosen it because he'd seen in a gossip column years ago that this room, this table, belonged to the family Nathaniel had lost. He wanted to watch Nathaniel's hands shake.
Nathaniel felt the weight of two hundred eyes as he stepped up to the table, jaw tight, refusing to give Whitfield the reaction he was fishing for. He chalked his cue and lined up the shot: a difficult bank across three rails, the kind of shot that separated professionals from amateurs. The room held its breath.
And then, from somewhere near the doorway, came a small voice: "Can I try?"
The crowd turned as one. Standing at the edge of the room, barely reaching the felt of the table with her chin, was a little girl in a red dress and a red and white headband, holding nothing more threatening than a half-eaten cracker in one hand.
A ripple of amused laughter moved through the crowd. Someone murmured, "Whose child is that?" Someone else laughed outright.
Whitfield's smile sharpened into something closer to delight: a new way to humiliate his rival, even better than the last. "Well, well," Whitfield said, spreading his arms theatrically. "Looks like Cole's found himself a new partner. Why not? Let the kid take the shot, Nathaniel. Might improve your odds."