Chapter 7

Tristan Chandler, the old president, was eighty years old, but he still walked with the steady, unhurried grace of someone who'd spent a lifetime tending to a tea stove.

When he walked into the Rivers Residence, my mother instantly fell silent, not daring to say another word.

My father also dropped his usual head-of-the-family act.

Tristan set an old wooden box down on the table.

"Before Grace Wyatt passed away, she left a copy of the Rainleaf Tea House inheritance papers with the association. The version the Wynn family brought out is missing the extra page," he said.

My father…