Page 36 of His Vow

Planning world domination. Wish you were here to judge my handwriting.

Nolan

Your handwriting is a crime scene.

I grinned.

Soleil

Says the man who owns only one color.

Nolan

Black contains all colors.

Soleil

We've been over this. You lost.

Nolan

I never lose. I strategically concede.

I pressed the phone against my chest and bit my lip. Margaux was watching me from the doorway, her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised to a height that suggested she had opinions.

"Don't," I said.

"I didn't say anything."

"Your eyebrow said plenty."

She held up both hands and disappeared into the back room. I returned to the butcher paper, still smiling, and picked up my pencil.

My phone buzzed again. Not Nolan. Margaux's ringtone — the one she used for business calls — echoed from the back room. I heard her answer. A pause. Her voice, low, asking questions I couldn't make out.

I added another Post-it to the east wall layout, drew a line connecting two pieces, and crossed it out.

Margaux's footsteps were slow when she came back. I looked up.

Her face was different. The sharpness was still there, but held very still. Her lips were pressed into a line. Her laptop was closed against her chest.

"What?" I set the pencil down.

She sat on the floor across from me, crossing her legs, the butcher paper crinkling beneath her. She set the laptop beside her knee.

"That was the Hargrove Foundation."

"Okay."

"The endowment collapsed." She said it carefully, each word placed. "Something about the underlying investments being acquired. The funding structure — it imploded. The grant is terminated. Effective immediately."

I stared at her. "What do you mean, terminated?"

"Gone, Soleil. No transition period. No wind-down. The foundation is dissolving."

"They can't just — we have a contract. We have a grant agreement through spring."

"The grant agreement is contingent on the foundation's solvency. If the foundation ceases to exist, the agreement terminates automatically." Margaux opened her laptop and turned it so I could see. On the screen were the numbers concerning our operating budget, the programming line item, and the gap where the Hargrove grant used to be. "I've been running numbers since I hung up."