“I’ll make sure he gets it,” she whispered. I turned and walked past the framed blueprints on the walls and my own reflection in the lobby mirrors without shedding a single tear.
I didn’t cry in the elevator or the parking garage, though I sat in my car for minutes with my hands gripping the steering wheel. I have never been a woman who cries easily, a trait my husband viewed as distance but my grandfather called patience.
My grandfather, Arthur Sterling, built a real estate empire with a belief in brick and mortar that bordered on religion. By the time he passed, he owned dozens of properties across the East Coast and controlled enough land that people whispered his name with reverence.
“Never confuse being underestimated with being powerless, Diana,” he used to tell me. He also taught me that the people who ask the fewest questions about your wealth are usually the ones you can trust.
He left everything to me instead of my cousins because I was the only one who sat in his office on Tuesday afternoons to learn about rent rolls and foundation loads. I was the child who listened when he explained why a building is actually a set of promises someone has to keep.