Chương 3
Vivian removed her coat but did not sit.
“What happened?”
Ethan poured himself a drink.
“Claire and I ended things.”
“Tonight?”
“It’s been ending for months.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He drank.
Vivian watched him.
“You told me you ended the engagement two weeks ago.”
“I told her where things were going.”
“What does that mean?”
“Vivian.”
“What does that mean?”
He set the glass down.
“She knew.”
Vivian’s face tightened.
“Knew what?”
“That we weren’t getting married.”
“And yet she was here tonight wearing her engagement ring.”
“It was complicated.”
Vivian stared at him.
Ethan became aware of music resuming in the foyer.
Someone had instructed the quartet to continue.
A violin moved softly through the wall.
“Did you take the ring off her hand?” Vivian asked.
He did not answer quickly enough.
Her eyes closed for a second.
“Oh my God.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
“She was refusing to accept reality.”
“So you took it off her in front of people?”
“I wanted clarity.”
Vivian gave a short breath that held no humor.
“Clarity.”
“My mother thought—”
“Of course she did.”
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act morally superior after everything we discussed.”
Vivian looked at him for several seconds.
“What did we discuss, Ethan?”
“Our future.”
“We discussed the possibility of a future after you told me you had ended your engagement.”
“I had.”
“No. Apparently you hadn’t.”
“She knew we were finished.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you need an audience?”
He looked away.
Vivian put her coat back on.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
“Vivian.”
“My father is in the next room.”
“This dinner matters.”
“That sounds like your problem tonight.”
“You knew what was at stake.”
“I knew your company was trying to close a financing agreement with Langford Capital. I knew our families thought a relationship between us would be convenient. I knew I liked you more than I should have.”
She buttoned her coat.
“I did not know I was driving to a party where you had just publicly stripped another woman’s engagement ring off her hand.”
“Vivian, wait.”
She stopped at the door.
“Did Claire know about me?”
Ethan said nothing.
Vivian’s mouth compressed.
“That is not an answer I’m willing to build a marriage on.”
She left.
Ethan remained in the library until he heard the front doors open and close again.
This time, nobody rushed outside after the car.
At the Harbor apartment, Claire stood in the bathroom and tried to remove one diamond earring.
Her fingers would not cooperate.
She had worn the earrings because Margaret once told her that small diamonds disappeared in a room the size of Sterling House.
Claire had bought them the following week.
That memory irritated her more than the earring itself.
She pulled harder.
“Ow.”
The backing dropped into the sink.
Claire froze.
Then she started laughing.
It came out once, sharp and ugly.
She covered her mouth.
The apartment was silent.
Claire had bought the place seven years earlier and rarely used it anymore. It had one bedroom, a narrow galley kitchen, and windows overlooking a slice of harbor between newer buildings. The furniture was good but not impressive. Her father had hated the sofa because it was too low.
Her father had been dead four years.
Tonight, Claire missed him with such sudden force that she sat on the closed toilet and held the remaining earring in her palm.
He would have hated Ethan.
That was not true.
He would have distrusted Ethan, which was different.
David Monroe had distrusted anyone who seemed overly comfortable being served.
The first time he met Ethan, they had gone to dinner at a private club. Ethan had thanked the waiter by name and asked about the waiter’s daughter, who had just started college.
On the drive home, Claire had said, “See? You were wrong.”
Her father had looked out the passenger window.
“I didn’t say he was rude.”
“You implied it.”
“I said he likes being liked.”
“Most people do.”
“No. Most people like being loved. Some people like being liked. There’s a difference.”
Claire had rolled her eyes.
Two months later, he died of a heart attack in his office while reviewing a hotel acquisition in Philadelphia.
For years afterward, Claire had resented that final judgment.
Now she resented its accuracy.
Her phone vibrated.
ETHAN.
She watched it ring.
Then stop.
A moment later it rang again.
She turned the phone facedown.
In the kitchen, she found a bottle of water and half a lemon that had become hard at the edges. She threw the lemon away, drank directly from the bottle, and stared at the cabinet above the sink.
Her engagement ring was gone.
The realization arrived differently in the apartment.
At Sterling House it had been spectacle.
Here it was absence.
She touched her bare finger.
Fourteen months.
She had spent fourteen months waking up with that ring on her hand.
Ethan had proposed at her favorite restaurant on a Tuesday night because he knew she disliked staged weekend proposals. No photographers. No hidden family members. He had been nervous enough to drop the box under the table.
Claire had loved him for that.
Or for the person she thought that nervousness revealed.
Her phone vibrated again.
This time the caller was Nora Kim, Claire’s chief operating officer.
Claire answered.
“Hi.”
“Where are you?”
“Harbor apartment.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Claire frowned. “Why?”
“Because there’s a video.”
She closed her eyes.
“How?”
“Someone at the party recorded it.”
“Of course.”
“It’s not everywhere yet. It’s moving in private messages. I got it from Lila Benton.”
Claire leaned against the counter.
“What does it show?”
“Enough.”
“Define enough.”
“The ring. Ethan’s line. Your question about who owns the house. You leaving.”
“Margaret?”
“Her comment is audible.”
Claire rubbed her forehead.
Nora continued, “The audio is extremely clear.”
“Wonderful.”
“No, actually. It’s awful.”
May you like
Claire smiled despite herself.
Nora had worked with her for six years and had never mastered comforting lies.
