Chương 4
“You discussed it with my mother.”
His jaw tightened.
It was not a clever line, and I did not feel clever saying it.
It simply sat between us.
Daniel pulled out a chair.
He did not sit.
“I ended it.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“After I walked in?”
He looked away.
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“How long?”
“Claire.”
“How long have you been sleeping with her?”
His fingers worked at the loose end of his tie.
Miriam said nothing.
“Three months,” he finally said.
The files on my computer went back almost five.
I felt something unexpectedly close to relief.
He was still lying.
That meant I did not have to decide whether to believe him.
“Why?”
He looked at Miriam again.
“I’m not doing this with her here.”
“Then leave.”
His expression hardened.
For years, Daniel had been good at making anger look like disappointment.
It had worked on employees, waiters, his younger brother, and me.
“You’re enjoying this.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Having leverage.”
Miriam shifted beside me, but I raised one hand.
Daniel continued.
“You’ve always hated that people saw Mercer Dynamics as mine.”
“It is yours.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, apparently I’ve misunderstood quite a lot.”
He paced toward the window.
Outside, guests were crossing the lawn toward the garden pavilion.
A little boy in a blue suit escaped his father and ran in a circle around a stone planter.
Daniel watched them.
“The company was supposed to be something I built.”
“It was.”
“Then the expansion failed.”
“You asked for help.”
“I asked for temporary financing.”
“My trust provided it.”
“And suddenly every conversation became about what your money saved.”
“I never told anyone.”
“You didn’t have to.”
His voice rose.
Miriam looked toward the door.
Daniel lowered it again.
“You could afford to be gracious because you had the power.”
There was enough truth in that to hurt.
I had enjoyed rescuing him.
Not consciously, perhaps, but I had liked being needed.
I had liked proving that Vivian was wrong about me being impractical.
I had liked watching Daniel accept my judgment after years of introducing me as the creative one and himself as the serious one.
None of that put him in bed with my mother.
But it made the marriage look less innocent from my side too.
“Did sleeping with Vivian make you feel powerful?” I asked.
He flinched.
“Don’t.”
“That’s a real question.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
A knock interrupted us.
Elena pushed the door open without waiting.
“The photographer wants to know whether we’re doing the staircase pictures because apparently sunlight has a personal schedule.”
She saw Daniel.
“Oh.”
Daniel picked up his jacket.
“Elena.”
“Nope.”
He blinked.
“Nope what?”
“I have no idea, but whatever you’re about to say to me, nope.”
“Elena,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Can you give us five minutes?”
Her face changed.
She had known me since college and recognized the tone I used when a vendor was about to receive bad news.
“Sure.”
She backed out.
Then she leaned in again.
“For the record, your mother is downstairs telling people you had food poisoning last night.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
I almost smiled.
“Thank you.”
Elena disappeared.
I looked at Daniel.
“Food poisoning?”
“I didn’t tell her to say that.”
“Interesting that she thinks I need an alibi.”
He put on his jacket.
“Are we still getting married?”
Miriam turned toward me.
For the first time that morning, I had no prepared answer.
I had said the wedding would happen.
I had built everything around letting them believe it would.
But standing there with Daniel, I suddenly saw the difference between holding a ceremony and marrying him.
“Yes,” I said.
His shoulders dropped.
Miriam’s eyes narrowed.
Daniel stepped toward me.
I moved back.
“Don’t misunderstand.”
His relief vanished.
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out with everyone else.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then he left.
Miriam waited until his footsteps disappeared.
“That was reckless.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
She gathered the folders.
“You need to decide what you actually want.”
“I want them exposed.”
“That’s an action.”
“I want him out of the company.”
“Another action.”
“I want her out of my father’s house.”
“Also an action.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
Guests had begun filling the white chairs beside the reflecting pool.
My aunt Diane was directing people despite having no official role.
Two of Daniel’s investors stood near the pavilion checking their phones.
The string quartet was warming up badly.
“What do you want, Claire?” Miriam asked again.
I touched the bare place on my finger where the ring had been.
“I want them to stop deciding what version of my life everybody else gets to see.”
Miriam considered that.
“That I can work with.”
At eight forty, she left to meet the corporate attorney in a private conference room near the estate office.
At nine, my mother returned carrying my veil.
She had changed into a champagne-colored gown.
She looked beautiful.
That annoyed me more than it should have.
“Daniel seems upset,” she said.
“I imagine he is.”
Vivian laid the veil across the bed.
“You don’t have to punish him forever.”
I turned from the mirror.
“You think this is about punishing Daniel?”
“I think marriages survive worse things than sex.”
“With the bride’s mother?”
Her eyes flickered.
“There is no need to be vulgar.”
I laughed then.
I could not help it.
Vivian’s face tightened.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
I wiped beneath one eye before the mascara could run.
“I think you’re unbelievable.”
She began fastening the tiny buttons at the back of my dress.
Her hands were steady.
When I was eight, those same hands had braided my hair for school.
May you like
When I was seventeen, they had slapped me for calling her cruel during an argument about my father.
When I was twenty-nine, they had held mine at his funeral.
