Chương 6
Emily sat at her mother’s kitchen table wearing old college sweatpants.
“I can work.”
“I know.”
“I have the quarterly model.”
“Diego has it.”
“He doesn’t know the assumption tabs.”
“He’ll survive.”
Emily pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“I don’t want everyone thinking I’m unstable.”
Rachel was silent.
Then she said, “Nobody who matters here thinks that.”
Emily looked through the blinds at a man with a camera standing across the street.
“That is a very managerial sentence.”
“I practiced it.”
Despite herself, Emily smiled.
Rachel continued more gently.
“Take three days. We’ll handle the rest.”
Emily agreed.
She spent the morning giving a second police statement.
That afternoon, Daniel came over.
He looked worse.
Susan let him in and immediately said she needed groceries.
“You bought groceries yesterday,” Emily said.
Susan picked up her purse.
“We’re dangerously low on something.”
“What?”
“Privacy.”
She left.
Daniel stood in the kitchen.
Emily folded a receipt that had been lying on the counter.
Neither spoke.
Finally he said, “She hired a criminal-defense attorney.”
Emily nodded.
“I heard.”
“He’s telling her not to speak with us.”
“That’s probably his job.”
“She says she didn’t take your phone.”
Emily looked up.
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
“I’m not saying I believe her.”
“But?”
“No but.”
“There’s always a but when someone says no but.”
He pulled out a chair.
“Can I sit?”
“It’s my mother’s chair.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
Emily almost smiled.
He sat.
They had not touched since the hotel.
The distance between them was less than four feet.
It felt deliberate.
“My mother says she followed you because she wanted to stop you from meeting Arthur.”
Emily frowned.
“She invented the meeting.”
“That’s what I said.”
“She told you that?”
“She says you misunderstood.”
Emily stared.
Daniel raised both hands slightly.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because she told me, very clearly, that Arthur wanted to discuss the prenup.”
“I believe you.”
“She knew exactly what she was doing.”
“I believe you.”
Emily stopped.
Daniel looked exhausted rather than defensive.
She hated that she wanted to comfort him.
“Why didn’t you tell me what she said in the garden?” he asked.
Emily looked down at the receipt.
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“You mean the part where your mother explained why I’m not good enough for you?”
His mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
“I was embarrassed.”
“Why?”
Emily laughed softly.
“Because some of it worked.”
Daniel leaned back.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I spent half an hour in the dirt thinking about whether she was right.”
“Emily.”
“She told me you’d eventually get tired of defending me.”
“I don’t defend you.”
“You translate me.”
“What?”
“To your family.”
“That’s not—”
“You do.”
He stopped.
Emily folded the receipt again.
“You explain that I’m tired when I’m quiet. You explain that I’m direct when someone thinks I’m rude. You tell them I didn’t grow up with household staff as if I’m a foreign-exchange student.”
Daniel stared at her.
“I was trying to help.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you saying it like I was ashamed of you?”
“Were you?”
“No.”
The speed of his answer made her look up.
“No,” he repeated. “Never.”
“Then why did you keep smoothing me out?”
He did not answer.
Emily watched the realization arrive in pieces he would probably have preferred to avoid.
He looked toward the window.
“My mother notices everything.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I know.”
He rubbed both palms over his face.
“I think I got used to managing her.”
Emily sat back.
There it was.
A sentence without a defense.
Daniel looked at her.
“I kept telling myself I was preventing conflict.”
“You were preventing consequences.”
“For her.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
The acknowledgment hurt more than an argument.
Emily swallowed.
“What happens now?”
“I don’t know.”
“With us.”
He looked at her.
“I still want to marry you.”
Her chest tightened.
“Daniel.”
“I’m not asking today.”
“Good.”
“I’m telling you.”
Emily pushed the folded receipt away.
“I still want to marry you too.”
His eyes closed briefly.
Then she said, “But not until I know whether you can stop being the man in the middle.”
He opened them.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I can’t answer that for you.”
He looked frustrated.
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
She stood and walked to the sink.
Outside, a reporter shifted his weight across the street.
Emily watched him through the narrow gap in the blinds.
“I don’t need you to hate your mother.”
“I’m pretty close.”
“That’s not useful.”
He exhaled.
“I don’t know what you want.”
“I want you to decide what you believe and what you’re willing to do about it without waiting for me or Arthur or your mother to hand you the right reaction.”
Daniel said nothing.
Emily turned.
He was looking at the floor.
For the first time in four years, she did not rescue him from discomfort.
The police investigation moved slowly.
That became its own kind of pressure.
Hotel employees were interviewed.
Electronic lock records were preserved.
Security video was reviewed.
The flower stand had been moved before police arrived because a banquet employee, unaware of its significance, returned it to storage.
Fingerprints were unusable.
The phone provided more.
A forensic examination confirmed that location history had been disabled and the photograph deleted during the period Emily was in the garden.
But there was no biometric record showing who had done it.
Victoria’s attorney emphasized that gap.
The prosecutor assigned to review the case refused to make public statements.
Online attention moved on.
Emily was grateful until it occasionally returned.
A podcast episode appeared.
Then a tabloid article.
Then nothing for almost a week.
Real life resumed in pieces.
Emily returned to work.
People avoided mentioning the wedding so aggressively that it became more awkward than if they had asked.
On her first morning back, Diego from corporate planning spent seven straight minutes telling her about a broken dishwasher.
May you like
Emily listened with genuine interest.
When he finally stopped, he looked embarrassed.
