Chapter 10 - The True Value of Time
The air in the Luxembourg Gardens was fresh, cold, and smelled faintly of roasted chestnuts and winter rain.
It was four days before Christmas. I sat on a dark green metal chair near the central grand fountain, wrapped in a warm cashmere coat, a cup of hot espresso resting on the small table beside me.
In my hands, I held the small blue velvet box that Eric had placed next to my morning coffee eight months ago.
I opened it. Inside lay the original round-trip ticket to Paris—the gift designed to isolate me, to distract me, to make me look like an irresponsible wife fleeing her marriage while a trap was sprung under my feet.
They had thought I was weak because I was quiet. They had thought I was blind because I trusted them. They had assumed that my dedication to my work meant I was oblivious to the world around me.
They had forgotten that an auditor’s greatest skill isn't finding numbers on a ledger.
It’s knowing how to stay completely still while the target destroys itself.
I picked up the blue paper ticket, tore it cleanly into four pieces, and let the scraps fall gently into the stone recycling urn next to my bench.
My phone vibrated in my coat pocket.
It was a notification from my firm’s executive board in Manhattan: Clara Sterling has been unanimously named Senior Managing Director of Risk & Compliance.
I smiled, slipping the phone back into my pocket, and took a slow, deep breath of the crisp Parisian air.
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The house in Greenwich was mine. My grandmother’s legacy was secure. My grandmother’s antique furniture was restored. The people who had tried to steal my life were sitting in prison cells, paying back every cent they had taken.
I stood up from the bench, pulled my leather gloves on, and walked down the gravel path toward the streets of Paris, ready to enjoy every single second of the life I had built with my own hands.
