Chương 5
He stepped closer, not touching her.
The female deputy said, “Mrs. Nelson, we can take you to the county hospital or another location of your choice. You are not required to remain here.”
“Another hospital,” Rosalie said quickly. “Not St. Vincent’s.”
Voss worked at St. Vincent’s.
The deputy nodded. “There’s a regional medical center twenty minutes east.”
“I want that one.”
Emmett’s smile strained. “Rosalie, be reasonable. St. Vincent’s has your records.”
“That’s also why.”
Elena reached them. Her dark green gown was damp at the hem from the lawn. She looked first at Manuel, then at Rosalie, then at Emmett.
“This is our wedding night,” she said, as though naming the occasion might restore it.
Manuel almost told her it had never been theirs.
Instead he said, “Mom, go inside.”
Her face sharpened. “Do not speak to me like I’m one of the staff.”
“Then don’t act like this is a seating problem.”
The words landed harder than he intended. Elena’s mouth opened, then closed. She had raised him alone after his father died, kept the construction company alive through debt and humiliation, and spent twenty years treating every social opportunity as something that could be converted into safety. Manuel knew where her instincts came from.
He also knew she had helped arrange this marriage.
Emmett addressed the deputy. “My attorney will be contacting the department. You are interfering in an established medical plan.”
The female deputy met his gaze. “Your daughter is an adult. She has requested transport. Unless you have a valid court order establishing guardianship, she leaves.”
Emmett said nothing.
It was the silence of a man who had expected a different answer.
Rosalie looked at him.
“There isn’t one anymore, is there?”
The question meant something Manuel did not yet understand.
Emmett’s eyes hardened. “This is not the place.”
“You told me the court renewed it.”
“Rosalie.”
“You told me I was still under it.”
The deputy glanced between them. “Under what?”
“A temporary guardianship order,” Rosalie said. “From when I was nineteen. My father said it remained active.”
Maya’s voice came through the phone. “It expired after ninety days. I confirmed that last week.”
Rosalie’s chin lifted, but her lips had gone pale.
Emmett looked toward the guests. People were recording openly now.
“The matter is complicated,” he said.
“No,” Maya replied. “The lie was simple.”
The ambulance arrived six minutes later, delayed at the gate until a deputy ordered security to raise the barrier. Rosalie refused a stretcher. She walked across the lawn with a blanket around her shoulders and the ruined gown trailing behind her. Manuel carried the train again.
At the ambulance doors, a paramedic asked whether he was coming.
Rosalie looked at Manuel before he answered.
Their entire marriage had been negotiated through other people. They had signed documents in separate offices. They had chosen flowers from images emailed by an assistant. Even their first dance had been shortened because Emmett disliked the song.
Now the decision belonged to her.
“Do you want me there?” Manuel asked.
She studied him for a long moment. Her intelligent eyes were less guarded than exhausted.
“Yes,” she said. “But don’t make promises.”
“What kind?”
“The kind men make when they’re angry.”
Manuel glanced back at Emmett, who stood beneath the greenhouse lights surrounded by deputies, employees, and guests.
“I can avoid those.”
“That sounded like one.”
He climbed into the ambulance.
The paramedic cut the back of the wedding gown farther open to examine Rosalie’s injury. She apologized twice before touching the fabric, which made Rosalie’s eyes fill though she did not cry. The cut was shallow but long. More concerning were the bruises along her back and upper arm, and the tenderness at her ankles.
The paramedic asked how she had been injured.
Rosalie stared at the ambulance ceiling. “I fell against a dresser.”
Manuel turned his head.
She saw him.
“Yesterday,” she added. “My father’s security director was in the room.”
The paramedic wrote both statements without comment.
At the regional medical center, staff placed Rosalie in a private examination room under an alias until security could be notified. Manuel sat in a plastic chair holding the preserved wedding dress inside a clear evidence bag provided by a deputy. The brass key was sealed separately. His tuxedo jacket had dirt along one sleeve. His boutonniere had lost most of its petals.
Rosalie changed into a hospital gown behind a curtain.
When she emerged, she looked smaller without the dress, though she was tall and broad-shouldered. She kept one hand at the back of the gown to prevent it from opening.
A nurse brought warm socks and asked whether she wanted food.
Rosalie said no.
The nurse placed a packet of crackers on the table anyway. “For later.”
After she left, Manuel examined the packet. “Saltines. The traditional wedding feast.”
Rosalie sat on the edge of the bed. “There was supposed to be mushroom ravioli.”
“I never got any.”
“You ate six of the crab things.”
“They were the size of coins.”
“I watched you hide two behind a floral arrangement when my father came over.”
“I didn’t want him judging my chewing.”
She looked at him.
For one unexpected second, both of them smiled.
Then Rosalie’s smile collapsed.
“My mother wore that dress.”
Manuel looked at the clear bag on the chair beside him. The lace was gray at the hem, red at the back, and torn nearly from the neckline to the waist.
“I guessed.”
“She married my father in it thirty-two years ago. He kept it in a climate-controlled case. Every year, someone inspected the silk and replaced the tissue paper. He said it was the last untouched thing she left behind.”
“Why did you wear it?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“That doesn’t sound like a reason.”
“It was the reason I had.”
May you like
Manuel leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His controlled anger had begun to wear off, leaving exhaustion and the first edges of shame.
“Did you want to marry me?”
