Chương 2
Isabella stayed where she was until the ballroom doors closed.
Then Lily whispered, “I’m sorry.”
The words struck harder than Marcus’s threat.
Isabella turned and knelt again. “For what?”
“The glass.”
“Lily.”
“It was expensive.”
“Look at me.”
Her daughter tried. Her gaze slid away toward the red stain on the marble.
“You do not apologize because an adult hurt you,” Isabella said. “Not to him. Not to me. Not to anyone.”
“I shouldn’t have been walking there.”
“You were carrying punch from one table to another. That is allowed.”
“But I spilled it.”
“And he grabbed you.”
The distinction seemed too large for Lily to cross. She stood with her hands folded against the front of her dress, the way she did when teachers spoke to her about rules.
Daniel rose with the glass wrapped inside the napkin.
“Mrs. Laurent,” he said, “we should take Lily somewhere quiet.”
Isabella nodded. The ballroom had begun breathing again. Conversations returned in low, uncertain currents. Some guests avoided looking at them. Others looked too directly. A board member named Thomas Bell was already speaking into his phone near the stage, one hand covering his other ear.
Isabella saw him and understood that the evening had become two emergencies at once.
She chose the smaller room.
The family parlor behind the ballroom smelled faintly of beeswax and old roses. It had been designed for bridal parties and anxious speakers, with a velvet sofa, a gilt mirror, and a cabinet stocked with bottled water, safety pins, tissues, aspirin, and sewing kits. Daniel locked the door after them, then asked Lily’s permission before photographing the mark on her arm.
“Just for us,” he said.
Lily looked at Isabella.
“It may help us remember exactly what happened,” Isabella told her.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
Daniel’s expression changed almost invisibly. His lips pressed together, then relaxed before Lily could see.
He took three photographs from different angles. The mark was pale but distinct. He placed the broken glass, still in the napkin, inside a clean catering box and wrote the time on the lid. Then he stepped into the hall to call the hotel’s general manager and preserve security footage.
Isabella sat beside Lily on the sofa.
For several minutes neither spoke. Music resumed in the ballroom, softer now, and through the wall came the awkward applause of people being told the gala would continue. Lily picked at a loose thread on her white tights.
“Who bumped you?” Isabella asked.
“A lady.”
“Did you see her face?”
“No. She had a shiny dress.”
“Silver?”
“Maybe.”
“Did she stop?”
“She said excuse me.”
“Before or after?”
Lily frowned, thinking. “After, I think.”
“Okay.”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Lily looked at the blue ribbon in the mirror. One end hung lower than the other. Isabella reached to straighten it, then stopped when Lily flinched.
The movement was tiny. Lily tried to hide it by lifting her chin.
Isabella lowered her hand.
“May I fix your ribbon?”
After a pause, Lily nodded.
Isabella untied it and smoothed the narrow strip of blue between her fingers. Julien had bought a box of those ribbons in Paris when Lily was three because he had forgotten her exact favorite color and decided twelve shades would improve his odds. Eleven still sat in a drawer at home. Isabella had never thrown them away, though several were too bright, and one was almost green.
She tied the ribbon again, looser this time.
“Daddy would have yelled at him,” Lily said.
The words came without warning.
Isabella stared at her hands.
“Your father might have,” she said.
“He would have been mad.”
“Yes.”
“Were you mad?”
“I am.”
“You didn’t look mad.”
“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t.”
Lily considered this. “You looked like when the freezer broke.”
Despite herself, Isabella gave a short breath that might have been a laugh.
“The freezer cost seventy thousand dollars.”
“Was Mr. Vale worse?”
“Yes.”
Lily leaned against her. The contact was cautious at first. Then her full weight settled.
Someone knocked. Daniel opened the door only after checking through the narrow panel of glass.
Thomas Bell entered without waiting to be invited.
He was sixty-two, silver-haired, compact, and permanently dressed as though a photograph might be taken for a business magazine. He had served on the hotel’s board since Julien’s father was alive and had the unnerving habit of lowering his voice when he was most alarmed.
“Is Lily all right?”
“She will be,” Isabella said.
Thomas looked at the child, then at the closed catering box on the table. “I’m very sorry, sweetheart.”
Lily did not answer.
Thomas shifted his attention to Isabella. “Can we speak privately?”
“No.”
His gaze flicked toward Lily. “This concerns the hotel.”
“Then you may speak in front of the owner’s daughter, who was just assaulted in the owner’s ballroom.”
He closed his eyes for half a second.
“Isabella.”
“Choose your next sentence carefully.”
Thomas walked to the window, though the curtains were drawn. “Marcus left.”
“I know.”
“His foundation staff left with him. So did two Vale Capital representatives.”
“I’m aware of how doors work.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me the enemy because I’m standing close enough to reach.”
Lily looked between them. Isabella regretted the exchange immediately, but the regret did not soften her.
Thomas rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Someone posted a video. It shows you ordering him out. It does not show what happened before.”
Daniel looked up. “How long is it?”
“Fourteen seconds.”
“Source?”
“I don’t know. It’s already moving.”
“How widely?”
Thomas gave him a tired glance. “Widely enough that three reporters have called our communications office.”
Daniel took out his phone.
Isabella felt Lily sit straighter beside her. “What video?”
“Nothing you need to watch,” Isabella said.
“Is it me?”
“It includes you.”
Lily’s face changed.
Thomas saw it and softened. “No one can see you clearly, sweetheart.”
May you like
“That isn’t the point,” Isabella said.
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”
