ROWEN

By the time everyone was seated, the scent of grilled oysters and roasted garlic had filled the room, blending with expensive perfume, beeswax polish, and the faint bite of scotch from the Chairman’s ever-present tumbler.

The clatter of silverware and muted conversations began as the first course was served. Creamy lobster bisque, poured delicately into bone-white porcelain bowls by uniformed staff who moved like shadows along the polished marble.

Eleanor reached for the ladle before anyone else. As the oldest woman at the table, tradition dictated that she serve her father-in-law first, since her mother was late and her father did not take another wife. Otherwise, the woman was...