Chương 4
One word and lawyers would arrive before midnight.
One word and every person recording would post a different version of justice.
My cheek throbbed.
I looked at Clarissa.
She was frightened now.
Not sorry.
Frightened.
There was a difference, and I did not want to confuse the two.
"Yes," I said.
Brandon shut his eyes.
Clarissa stared at me.
"You cannot be serious."
"I am."
"Over a slap?"
The words produced a small shift in the room.
Even some of her own guests looked at her differently.
My father did not react.
Howard did.
His eyebrows rose.
Clarissa heard herself too late.
"I didn't mean it like that."
"How did you mean it?" I asked.
She looked at Brandon for help.
He looked away.
That tiny act seemed to wound her.
She had spent the evening teaching him cowardice and was offended to discover he had learned it.
Natasha stepped closer to her mother.
"Mom, stop talking."
"They're filming you."
Clarissa looked around.
For the first time, she seemed to see the phones as threats instead of applause.
Several lowered immediately.
Others remained up.
Jessica quietly slipped hers into her purse.
Howard pointed at the purse.
"Please don't delete anything."
Jessica's eyes widened.
"I wasn't."
"Good."
"I mean, I already ended it."
"Also good."
"Can you stop talking to me like I'm twelve?"
Howard considered her.
"That depends."
I pulled the jacket more tightly around my body.
The adrenaline that had held me upright began draining away.
My knees felt hollow.
My father noticed.
"Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"Emma."
"Please don't."
His expression shifted.
He understood then that I could not bear another command, even a caring one.
He nodded.
"All right."
That small surrender nearly undid me.
A waiter approached carrying a glass of water.
His hand trembled so badly that the surface rippled.
"For you, ma'am."
"Thank you."
He looked young, maybe twenty.
A fading tattoo showed beneath the cuff of his uniform shirt.
When I took the glass, he leaned closer.
"I saw the whole thing."
I looked at him.
He swallowed.
"I mean, if somebody asks."
Clarissa heard.
"Excuse me?"
The waiter straightened.
His fear was immediate.
The event manager started toward us.
For a second, I thought he was coming to reprimand the waiter.
Instead, he placed himself beside him.
"So did I," the manager said.
Clarissa stared at both men.
Something subtle changed in the room.
Until then, my father had been the only source of power anyone could see.
Now two hotel employees had stepped into the open.
A woman near the dance floor lowered her phone and said, "I saw it too."
Her husband touched her arm.
She shook him off.
"So did I."
Then another voice.
And another.
Not many.
Maybe six.
But enough.
Clarissa's shoulders stiffened.
"This has become grotesque."
My father looked at her.
"It became grotesque before I arrived."
Sirens sounded faintly below.
The ballroom shifted again.
People began checking phones, whispering, texting spouses, attorneys, assistants, drivers.
A man in a tuxedo hurried toward the elevators and nearly collided with a floral arrangement.
Ordinary panic returned to the wealthy exactly like panic returned to anyone else.
Badly and with a lot of pretending.
Brandon came closer to me.
I stepped back.
He stopped.
"Can we talk somewhere private?"
"No."
"Emma, please."
"Not now."
"You haven't even heard me."
"I heard you all night."
His face tightened.
"That's not fair."
I stared at him.
The phrase was so stupid that for a second I thought I had misheard.
Brandon looked around, perhaps realizing everyone else had heard it too.
"I mean about us."
"There is no us right now."
"Because I froze for thirty seconds?"
"Because I watched you decide who you were."
His mouth tightened.
"That's a nice line."
"It isn't a line."
"You're acting like I hit you."
"No."
I touched my cheek.
"You just made sure the person who did knew you wouldn't interfere."
He recoiled.
That one reached him.
My father took a half step forward.
I lifted my hand.
He stopped.
This was mine.
Brandon saw that too.
His voice dropped.
"You lied to me for eight months."
"I didn't tell you who my father was."
"That's a lie."
"Yes."
The admission surprised him.
Maybe he had expected excuses.
"I was going to tell you."
"When?"
"I don't know."
"Convenient."
"Probably."
He laughed once without humor.
"So you get to test me, and I don't get to react?"
"You can react."
"I am reacting."
"Then react to me."
He frowned.
"Not to the money."
That silenced him.
I could see the answer arriving in his face before he found words.
He hated that I had hidden something.
He also hated that the hidden thing made me more powerful than him.
Both feelings could be true.
Neither erased what had happened.
"I loved you," he said.
The past tense hurt more than I wanted it to.
I looked down at the water glass.
A bead of condensation rolled over my thumb.
"Maybe."
His face changed.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I don't know what you loved."
He whispered my name.
The ballroom doors opened again.
Two uniformed police officers entered with the hotel director and a security supervisor.
Conversation dropped away.
The older officer scanned the room, then approached the event manager.
"We received a report of an assault."
Clarissa spoke before anyone else.
"This is a family matter."
The officer looked at her.
"Ma'am, I wasn't speaking to you."
Natasha grabbed her mother's arm.
"Stop."
Clarissa shook her off.
"You have no idea who you're dealing with."
The officer's expression remained neutral.
Behind him, somebody gave a quiet, disbelieving laugh.
My father looked at Howard.
Howard closed his eyes for one second.
Even he seemed impressed by her determination to make things worse.
The officer turned to me.
"Are you Emma Cooper?"
"Yes."
"Did someone strike you?"
"Yes."
May you like
He glanced at my cheek, then at the torn dress beneath Howard's jacket.
"Would you be willing to speak with us somewhere quieter?"
