Samuel studied her face.
“You look different, baby.”
“Different how?”
“Your mother used to have that same look.”
Grace glanced at him.
“What look?”
“The one she got when somebody told her she couldn't do something.”
Samuel smiled sadly.
“Lord knows that woman could be stubborn.”
Grace looked away.
“I miss her.”
“I know you do.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Now tell me something. Why in God's name did you come back here?”
Grace didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she looked through the glass doors toward the enormous chandelier hanging above the lobby.
“Do you remember that old laptop I used during the night shift?”
Samuel laughed.
“The one held together with tape and prayer?”
“That one.”
“Of course I remember. Your mother called it your little robot.”
Grace nodded.
“I was building a scheduling system. Something that could tell housekeeping which rooms were ready, which guests had checked out, and which floors needed extra staff.”
“I remember you talking about it.”
“After Victoria fired me, Gabriel and I kept working on it. Every night. Sometimes until four in the morning.”
Samuel listened.
“We couldn't afford an office. We worked at our kitchen table in Queens. Our first server was a secondhand computer Gabriel bought from a college student.”
“And?”
“By spring, three hundred hotels were using our software.”
Samuel blinked.
“Three hundred?”
Grace nodded.
“Then a technology company in Seattle made us an offer.”
“What kind of offer?”
Grace hesitated.
“Six hundred and forty million dollars.”
Samuel stared at her.
Rain hammered against the umbrella.
“Say that again.”
“Six hundred and forty million.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
“Grace Carter. Six hundred and forty million American dollars?”
“Last time I checked.”
Samuel looked toward the sky.
“Ruthie, your daughter has lost her mind.”
Grace laughed harder than she had in months.
Samuel shook his head in disbelief.
“With that kind of money, you could live anywhere. Buy a mansion. Buy an island. Buy the whole damn beach.”
“I don't want a beach.”
Her smile faded.
Samuel noticed.
“Then what do you want?”
Grace looked toward the hotel.
“I want to know why my mother was fired two weeks before she earned her pension.”
Samuel's face changed.
Grace continued.
“She gave thirty-one years of her life to this building. Thirty-one years. And they sent her home with a cardboard box and an accusation that she was a thief.”
“Grace—”
“She never stole anything, Uncle Sam. You know that.”
“I know.”
“She once found a diamond bracelet worth fifty thousand dollars in a guest's bathroom. She turned it in before she even finished cleaning the room.”
“I remember.”
“And they expect me to believe she stole a silver tea set?”
Samuel lowered his eyes.
Grace watched him carefully.
“You know something.”
He said nothing.
“You've always known something.”
Samuel looked toward the hotel doors.
“Some things are dangerous to talk about.”
“Not anymore.”
He looked back at her.
Grace slowly opened the leather folder.
Samuel glanced at the document.
At first, he didn't understand.
Then he saw the company name.
CARTER HOLDINGS.
His eyes moved lower.
ACQUISITION OF CONTROLLING INTEREST.
SIXTY-ONE PERCENT.
He stopped breathing for a moment.
“Grace…”
She waited.
“You bought it?”
Grace nodded.
“Carter Holdings bought the controlling shares this morning.”
Samuel looked at the building, then back at Grace.
“The Sterling?”
“Yes.”
“The whole Sterling family doesn't control it anymore?”
“No.”
Samuel let out a long, trembling breath.
“Oh, Ruthie.”
His voice cracked.
“Your little girl bought the hotel.”
Grace closed the folder.
“Victoria doesn't know.”
Samuel stared at her.
“Then why didn't you tell her? Why let her stand there and talk to you like that?”
“Because I wanted to see something.”
“What?”
“Who she really is when she thinks nobody important is watching.”
Samuel fell silent.
Grace stepped closer.
“And now I need you to tell me what happened to Mama.”
The old man looked at her for a long time.
Then he nodded.
“Tomorrow morning. Six o'clock. The bench across from the park.”
“Why not now?”
Samuel looked toward the hotel.
“Because what I have to tell you deserves more than a conversation in the rain.”
Inside the Sterling Hotel, the air smelled of expensive perfume, fresh orchids, and polished wood.
Victoria crossed the lobby like a general inspecting her troops.
“Who allowed that woman to stand outside my entrance for five minutes?”
Behind the reception desk, Chloe Bennett looked up.
Chloe was twenty-four, with chestnut-brown hair tied neatly behind her head and a smile that had survived eleven months of working under Victoria Sterling.
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Sterling. Which woman?”
“Grace Carter.”
Recognition crossed Chloe's face.
“Oh. Grace.”
Victoria stopped.
“You know her?”
“She trained me before she left.”
“And?”
Chloe hesitated.
“She was very kind to me.”
Victoria's expression hardened.
“Kindness is not a qualification for employment.”
A voice came from behind her.
“Neither is cruelty, Mother.”
Preston Sterling approached from the elevator.
At thirty-four, Preston was Victoria's only son. Tall, dark-haired, and usually impeccably dressed, he had inherited his father's features but very little of his mother's appetite for power.