Zara didn’t speak immediately once the two of us were alone. I decided that if she wasn’t going to break the silence, I would. “You talked to the lawyers.” That was the obvious explanation for why she was here.
“I did.” Zara offered no apologies. “And now I’m talking to you. I’m sure you can forgive me for not doing so sooner. As you can imagine, this has all come as a bit of a shock.”
A bit? I snorted and cut through the niceties. “You held a press conference strongly suggesting that your father was senile and that I’m under investigation by the authorities for elder abuse.”
Zara perched at the end of an antique desk—one of the few surfaces in the room not covered with accessories or clothes. “Yes, well, you can thank your legal team for not making certain realities apparent sooner.”
“If I get nothing, you get nothing.” I wasn’t going to let her come in here and dance around the truth.
“You look… nice.” Zara changed the subject and eyed my new outfit. “Not what I would have chosen for you, but you’re presentable.”
Presentable, with an edge. “Thanks,” I grunted.
“You can thank me once I’ve done what I can to ease you through this transition.”
I wasn’t naive enough to believe that she’d had a sudden change of heart. If she’d despised me before, she despised me now. The difference was that now she needed something. I figured that if I waited long enough, she’d tell me exactly what that something was.
“I’m not sure how much Alisa has told you, but in addition to my father’s personal assets, you have also inherited control of the family’s foundation.” Zara took measure of my expression before continuing. “It’s one of the largest private charitable foundations in the country. We give away upward of a hundred million dollars a year.”
A hundred million dollars. I was never going to get used to this. Numbers like that were never going to seem real. “Every year?” I asked, stunned.
Zara smiled placidly. “Compound interest is a lovely thing.”
A hundred million dollars a year in interest—and she was just talking about the foundation, not Tobias Hawthorne’s personal fortune. For the first time, I actually ran the math in my head. Even if taxes took half of the estate, and I only averaged a four-percent yield—I’d still be making nearly a billion dollars a year. Doing nothing. That was just wrong.
“Who does the foundation give its money to?” I asked quietly.
Zara pushed off the desk and began pacing the length of the room. “The Hawthorne Foundation invests in children and families, health initiatives, scientific advancement, community building, and the arts.”
Under those headings, you could support nearly anything. I could support nearly anything.
I could change the world.
“I’ve spent my entire adult life running the foundation.” Zara’s lips pulled tight across her teeth. “There are organizations that rely on our support. If you intend to exert yourself, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do that.” She stopped right in front of me. “You need me, Avery. As much as I’d like to wash my hands of all of this, I’ve worked too long and too hard to see that work undone.”
I listened to what she was saying—and what she wasn’t. “Does the foundation pay you?” I asked. I ticked off the seconds until her reply.
“I draw a salary commensurate with the skills I bring.”
As satisfying as it would have been to tell her that her services would no longer be needed, I wasn’t that impulsive, and I wasn’t cruel. “I want to be involved,” I told her. “And not just for show. I want to make decisions.”
Homelessness. Poverty. Domestic violence. Access to preventative care. What could I do with a hundred million dollars a year?
“You’re young enough,” Zara said, her voice almost wistful, “to believe that money solves all ills.”
Spoken like a person so rich she can’t imagine the weight of problems money can solve.
“If you’re serious about taking a role at the foundation…” Zara sounded like she was enjoying saying that about as much as she would have enjoyed dumpster diving or a root canal. “I can teach you what you need to know. Monday. After school. At the foundation.” She issued each part of that order as its own separate sentence.
The door opened before I could ask where exactly the foundation was. Oren took up position beside me. The women will come after you in the courtroom, he’d told me. But now Zara knew that she couldn’t come after me legally.
And my head of security didn’t want me in this room with her alone.
