I shook her hand and was suddenly acutely conscious of my wintery jeans, the damp perspiration marks under my armpits, my unwashed hair. The fact that I could do with a shower. The notion that I’d never in my wildest dreams have a body like hers. Martin watched us as though he was weighing us, one against the other. For some absurd reason I felt he’d done this on purpose—juxtaposed, contrasted me against Lennin—so I could take note of my own shortcomings, my age, against Lennin’s youth and vitality. Even while I knew it was an absurd idea, resentment pulsed through me.
“It’s Ellie,” I corrected. It was fine for Martin to call me El, not her.
Her smile wavered, but just for a nanosecond. “I’m so thrilled to be part of a Hartley Group project, Ellie.”
“Excuse me?”
A tiny frown crossed her brow. “The Hartley Group,” she repeated.
“The Agnes Marina project has got nothing to do with the Hartley Group.”
She glanced at the brochure in my hand. I followed her gaze. The back page was covered with a glossy photograph of my dad, a copy of his signature in bold black underneath.
“Your father’s backing is a huge sales point for us,” said Lennin. “Sterling Hartley has . . . well, he frankly has a sterling reputation. Our association with him has been a super-hot selling point.”
My heart beat faster. I shot a look at Martin. He’d turned away from me and was using a remote to flip through advertising collateral on one of the monitors.
Heat burned into my face. I said to Lennin, “My father isn’t a part of—”
“Ellie!” Martin called. “Come over here and see this.” He aimed his remote and clicked. Aerial footage filled the screen as a drone moved over long stretches of beach fringing endless mangrove swamps with dark, twisting rivers. “We’re going to need more of these drone shots, I think. See there?” He pointed the remote at the screen. “The marina channels will be dug into the mangrove flats at the north end. And over there, that’s where the eco-lodge and wildlife viewing platform will be. We’ve already constructed temporary scaffolding with a platform near an abandoned homestead so prospective buyers can climb up and see the view potential. I’ll take you out there now.”
“Martin,” I said quietly, “my father is not backing or endorsing this project. His company—the Hartley Group—has nothing to do with Agnes Basin. This is my—our—financing. It’s an Agnes Holdings development, not a Hartley Group project.”
He flicked a glance at Lennin. She quickly went into the adjacent office and shut the door. Martin waited for her to disappear, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Our association with the Hartley family is a fact, Ellie. You are a Hartley. Your dad financially backed you, knowing what this was all about.”
A buzzing grew loud between my ears. “That’s not an endorsement. You can’t use his name. This is my fund. My father basically invested me out of his life. He threw this money at me because of some paternal guilt thing. He did not invest in Agnes Basin.”
“It was his lawyers who helped you set up the financing and the holding company, El.” He nodded at the brochure. “It’s just semantics. Juxtaposition. We don’t actually say in there that he’s our backer. It’s just the illusion that he is. Nothing is a lie.”
“It’s misleading at best, fraud at worst.”
His eyes narrowed sharply. His jaw tensed. His gaze ticked to the closed office door. Quietly he said, “We’ll talk outside. I’ll explain how these things work. This is all new to you—a children’s artist with a literature background. I appreciate it’s a steep learning curve.”
Anger sparked through me. “I might not be informed about the real estate business,” I replied curtly, “but I’m not an idiot.”
He grabbed my upper arm, hard. Shock ripped through me. “Come, now,” he growled as he forced me out the door. He slammed the door shut behind us. Hot wind tugged at my hair. Martin ushered me into the parking lot well away from the building. He bent his head close to mine.
“The fact is, you are a Hartley, Ellie. And I—”
“I’m your wife, Martin. I’m Mrs. Cresswell-Smith. Before that I was Ellie Tyler, Doug’s wife. Using my maiden name in advertising collateral is deception.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, it’s not deception—that’s who you are. The ‘Hartley Heiress.’ Anyone who reads more into that, well, that’s their fault. They don’t have a legal leg to stand on. Think about it like a lawyer.”
“I’m not a lawyer. Neither are most of the buyers who’ll be misled by this.”
“It’s goddamn marketing. Buyer beware. It’s how the world works, from photoshopped models in everything from soap and toothpaste to car commercials. Do you think the guy on TV in a white lab coat is really a doctor? Do you think the model with nice skin got her complexion that way from using the product she’s shoving down your throat? Do you think the shampoo really gave the actress her nice thick hair? Jesus. Grow up, Ellie. The Hartley name is like the lab coat. It inspires subliminal confidence. It’s helping kick-start presales. And if we continue with this volume, we will make headline numbers, and it’ll force the big banks to take notice, and they’ll clamor to throw more equity at us for the next phases.” He dragged his hand irritably over his hair, making it stand up. Sweat gleamed on his face. “Look, I understand. You don’t get it. You’ve never had to hustle for your next paycheck because you’ve lived your entire life in an ivory tower. People like you can afford shallow philanthropy—you can afford to sit on a high horse. But this is how you hustle.”
“People like me?” Sweat trickled down my belly into the waistband of my jeans. Heat pressed down thicker, wetter, stifling. The world around me swayed with the movement of the river
