Chương 2
“Emily.”
Robert turned.
Ethan stopped.
There was a long pause.
Then Marcus, the best man, stepped between them without quite looking at either man.
“Ethan,” he said quietly. “Come outside.”
“I’m not leaving my own wedding.”
“It isn’t your wedding anymore.”
Ethan looked at him.
Marcus immediately looked uncomfortable, but he did not retract it.
Something almost childish crossed Ethan’s face.
Betrayal.
Emily had seen him furious. She had seen him cold. She had seen him charming enough to make a roomful of strangers believe they had always been his friends.
She had rarely seen him surprised by disobedience.
Marcus nodded toward the courtyard.
“Come on.”
Ethan stared at Emily for another second.
Then he walked outside.
No one followed him except Marcus.
The room seemed to exhale.
Emily bent down automatically.
Her mother caught her shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“The glass.”
“There are people for that.”
“I know.”
Emily straightened.
She had no idea why she had tried to pick it up.
A young waiter appeared with a broom and dustpan. He looked about twenty. His face was rigid with the concentration of someone trying desperately not to become part of a family disaster.
“Ma’am,” he said, “please don’t step there.”
Emily looked at her bare shoulders, her wedding gown, the blood-colored bruise around her eye, and the boy sweeping broken champagne glass from around her shoes.
A laugh escaped her.
It was one small sound.
Diane looked alarmed.
Emily covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
The waiter glanced up.
“You don’t have to apologize to me.”
For some reason, that nearly made her cry.
She turned away.
Upstairs, the bridal suite still looked like a room waiting for a wedding.
The warm beige walls reflected the afternoon sun. Makeup brushes covered the vanity. A curling iron lay unplugged beside a half-eaten blueberry muffin. Four garment bags hung from brass hooks. Someone had left a bottle of sparkling water open beside the window.
Emily’s phone was on the chaise.
Twenty-three unread messages.
Most were cheerful.
Can’t wait!!!
You ready Mrs. Cole???
Traffic is AWFUL but we’re coming.
One was from Ethan.
Sent at 8:12 a.m.
We need to talk before you make this worse.
Emily stared at it.
Diane came in behind her and shut the door.
Robert remained in the hallway.
Emily could see his shadow beneath the door.
Her mother sat on the edge of the chaise.
“What happened?”
Emily kept looking at the message.
“Last night?”
“All of it.”
“That could take a while.”
“We have a while.”
Downstairs, somebody moved a chair.
Emily looked toward the sound.
“The guests.”
“I don’t care about the guests.”
“You’ve cared about the guests for nine months.”
“I have changed my priorities.”
Despite herself, Emily smiled.
Diane did not.
Her mother had always been good at maintaining composure. She had survived charity committees, funerals, Robert’s emergency appendectomy, a kitchen fire, two miscarriages before Emily was born, and thirty-one years of marriage with a face that rarely revealed more than she intended.
Now her pearl earring trembled.
Emily sat beside her.
“It happened last night.”
Diane waited.
“We argued after the rehearsal dinner.”
“About what?”
Emily rubbed her thumb against the edge of her phone.
“Money.”
Diane blinked.
“What money?”
“Mine.”
There was a knock.
Robert opened the door before either woman answered.
“Sorry.”
He clearly was not sorry.
“Where is he?”
Emily asked.
“Outside with Marcus.”
“You didn’t hit him again?”
“No.”
Diane looked at him.
Robert added, “I considered it.”
“Robert.”
“I said I didn’t.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“Can you both just sit down?”
Her parents looked at each other.
Then, like chastened children, they sat.
Robert took the desk chair. Diane remained beside Emily.
For a moment none of them spoke.
Emily could hear the air-conditioning.
A makeup artist’s tiny electric fan hummed on the vanity because nobody had turned it off.
She picked it up, switched it off, and set it down.
“Ethan wanted me to sign something.”
Robert leaned forward.
“What?”
“A postnuptial agreement.”
Her father frowned.
“You’re not married.”
“I know.”
“He wanted you to sign a postnup before the wedding?”
“He said we’d date it Monday.”
Diane stared at her daughter.
“That makes no sense.”
“It wasn’t supposed to make sense. It was supposed to scare me.”
Emily unlocked her phone.
Her hands were steadier now.
“He has debt.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Emily.”
“I don’t know, Dad.”
Robert leaned back.
She hated the expression that crossed his face.
Not anger this time.
Recognition.
He had warned her.
Not about violence. Never that. But about Ethan’s appetite for risk.
Ethan ran a boutique real-estate development company. He bought distressed properties, renovated them, repositioned them, refinanced them, sold some, held others. When things went well, he made extraordinary amounts of money.
When things went badly, he called them temporary liquidity events.
Robert, who had built a regional commercial insurance business over three decades, called them debt.
The two men had disliked each other almost from the beginning.
Emily had defended Ethan so many times that she could recite the arguments from memory.
He’s ambitious.
He’s building something.
Not everybody wants to spend thirty years doing the same thing.
He takes risks because he believes in himself.
Robert rubbed his mouth.
“Did he ask you for money?”
“No.”
“Did he ask you to guarantee anything?”
“No.”
“Did you sign anything?”
“No.”
Her father’s shoulders lowered a fraction.
“Okay.”
Emily looked at him.
“That isn’t the important part.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Robert went quiet.
Emily pressed her fingertips against her forehead.
“The important part is that I told him no, and he hit me.”
Her mother’s hand closed around hers.
Emily looked at the carpet.
“He didn’t punch me. I don’t know why I feel like I have to say that.”
“You don’t,” Diane said.
“He slapped me first.”
Robert stood.
“Sit down,” Emily said.
He sat.
“The first time was here.”
May you like
She touched her cheek.
“Then I pushed him away. I think my ring scratched his neck. He got angrier. He grabbed my arm and shoved me into the bathroom door.”
