She looked at him.
“And I don’t want not knowing to become an excuse.”
Atlanta arrived after ten.
Ava went home rather than to the corporate apartment.
Her mother was awake.
Of course.
Vivian Coleman sat at the kitchen island wearing a silk robe and glasses low on her nose, reading a mystery novel as though it were noon instead of nearly eleven.
Ava entered.
Vivian looked up.
“You ate?”
“Yes.”
“Real food?”
“Technically.”
Vivian closed the book.
“You look irritated.”
Ava dropped her handbag onto a chair.
“I had an airport problem.”
“What kind?”
Ava hesitated.
Her mother’s face changed.
“What happened?”
Ava told her.
Not dramatically.
Just facts.
By the end, Vivian’s mouth had become a straight line.
“She said what?”
“Mom.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Dressing expensive doesn’t make you an owner?”
Ava closed her eyes.
“I should not have told you the exact line.”
“Absolutely not.”
Vivian stood.
Sixty-two.
Five-foot-four.
More terrifying when angry than most corporate attorneys Ava knew.
“I want her name.”
“No.”
“Ava.”
“No.”
“I will find her.”
“That sounds criminal.”
“I have internet.”
“Worse.”
Vivian stared.
Then softened.
“You okay?”
That question mattered more.
Ava sat.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
Her mother joined her.
For a moment Ava was fourteen again.
Coming home from a department store where a security guard followed her through three floors.
Seventeen, when a hostess assumed she was waiting for a delivery entrance despite her reservation.
Twenty-two, when a venture capitalist asked whether she worked in marketing after she introduced herself as chief financial analyst.
Twenty-seven, when a charter broker repeatedly addressed questions to the white male attorney beside her despite Ava being the investor.
Thirty-four.
CEO.
Owner.
Still explaining she belonged.
Vivian touched her hand.
“You know what I hate?”
“What?”
“That after all these years, I still want to ask what you were wearing.”
Ava looked at her.
Vivian smiled sadly.
“Not because it should matter.”
“I know.”
“Because when you were younger, I thought maybe if I dressed you perfectly…”
She stopped.
Ava squeezed her fingers.
“You did.”
“I know.”
“I looked incredible tonight.”
Vivian laughed.
“Obviously.”
The tension broke.
Then Vivian became serious.
“What are you going to do?”
“Review.”
“Not fire her?”
“She’s not my employee.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m going to see what happened before deciding what should happen next.”
Vivian nodded.
“Your father would’ve fired everybody.”
Ava smiled.
“He would have bought the terminal first.”
“That too.”
Her father, Malcolm Coleman, had died eight years earlier.
He never saw Ava become CEO.
But he had built the investment company whose aviation holdings eventually gave Ava controlling ownership of Sterling Crest.
People often assumed she inherited an airline.
The truth was more complicated.
She inherited risk.
Debt.
Aircraft leases.
An unfinished restructuring.
A company bleeding seven figures monthly.
She spent six years turning it into something profitable.
Nobody at Meridian knew that story.
Elise certainly had not.
But that was the point.
She should not have needed to.
Ava said quietly: