Chương 2
Another nod.
Celeste turned toward her.
“No.”
It was the first time panic appeared in her voice.
She corrected it immediately.
“Maya, there’s no reason to make this into some kind of incident.”
Maya’s gaze dropped to the desk.
She did not answer.
Nathan shifted Emma higher against him.
Celeste looked back at him.
“Oh, come on, Nathan.”
Emma moved at the sound of her name for him. Not much. Just enough that Nathan felt her cheek slide against his shirt.
Celeste noticed.
Her expression hardened.
“She spilled water on me.”
Nathan said nothing.
“She was wandering around carrying a tray. I thought she was with the staff.”
“She’s seven.”
“I can see that now.”
Nathan stared at her.
Celeste gave an irritated shake of her head.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As if I attacked her.”
Nathan looked down at Emma’s white tights.
There was a faint gray smear on one knee.
“You kicked something out of her hands.”
“I kicked a tray.”
“She was holding it.”
“She should not have been carrying it.”
Maya’s fingers moved toward the phone.
Celeste saw her.
“Maya.”
Maya froze again.
Nathan had always thought of fear as something dramatic. A sprint. A shout. A person reaching for an emergency exit.
What he saw in Maya was smaller.
Her eyes flicked toward the hallway leading to the private offices.
Her shoulders had gone stiff inside the navy uniform.
She was thinking about her job.
Nathan understood that immediately, because he had spent twenty years watching people calculate how much truth they could afford.
He carried Emma toward the seating area and lowered himself onto a cream leather sofa without putting her down.
“Can I see your knee?”
Emma shook her head.
“Okay.”
She kept her face buried in his chest.
He rubbed her back slowly.
Celeste remained near the broken glass.
A lounge attendant appeared at the far corridor, saw the scene, and stopped.
Maya finally lifted the receiver.
Celeste closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she seemed less shocked.
More organized.
Nathan knew that version of her.
It was the version that had once walked into a conference room after discovering that a prospective acquisition had concealed six million dollars in liabilities and dismantled three executives without ever uncrossing her legs.
He had admired it then.
That memory now embarrassed him.
“Nathan,” she said quietly, “we should speak privately.”
“No.”
“This is obviously upsetting, but—”
“No.”
Her nostrils flared.
Emma whispered something into his shirt.
Nathan bent his head.
“What?”
“I’m sorry about your case.”
He looked toward the black leather briefcase lying beside the glass doors.
“For what?”
“It fell.”
Nathan swallowed.
The stupid briefcase had cost twenty-six hundred dollars. He remembered the price because Celeste had teased him for carrying the same scratched Tumi for almost ten years and then sent the replacement to his office after a deal closed.
He had been annoyed by the gift.
Then he had used it every day.
Now it lay on its side in a shallow line of rainwater tracked in from his shoes.
He looked back at Emma.
“Forget the case.”
“I made you drop it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Her fingers loosened a fraction.
Nathan touched the back of her head.
“I dropped it.”
Emma stayed quiet.
He wanted her to look at him.
He also understood, suddenly, that wanting that was about him.
So he let her hide.
The lounge manager arrived with a security supervisor less than two minutes later.
The manager was a compact man named Adrian Ross, whom Nathan had met twice. He wore a midnight-blue suit and an expression designed for people who paid large annual membership fees not to encounter problems.
Tonight the expression had failed him.
“What happened?”
Celeste spoke first.
“A child spilled water. There was a misunderstanding.”
Nathan did not look at her.
Adrian looked at Emma in Nathan’s arms, the overturned tray, the broken glass.
Then at Maya.
“Maya?”
Maya’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Celeste’s shoulders relaxed by almost an inch.
Nathan noticed.
Adrian did too.
Nathan said, “My daughter was on her knees when I walked in. She was reaching toward Ms. Arden’s shoe with her sleeve.”
Adrian turned to Celeste.
Celeste’s face changed at the use of her surname.
“Nathan.”
He continued.
“Ms. Arden told me she kicked the tray because Emma spilled water on her.”
“That is not what I said.”
“You said you kicked the tray.”
“Yes, after she—”
Adrian held up a hand.
“Mr. Vale, would you and your daughter like a private suite?”
Nathan looked down at Emma.
“Em?”
She nodded against his chest.
“I’d like the footage secured first.”
“It will be.”
“And I want a written record of the request time.”
Adrian hesitated.
Only for a second.
“Of course.”
Celeste laughed once.
It was not amused.
“Are you seriously treating this like litigation?”
Nathan finally looked at her.
“I’m treating it like something happened to my daughter while I wasn’t here.”
The words hurt as soon as he said them.
While I wasn’t here.
Emma’s hand shifted against his tie.
Celeste heard the weakness inside the sentence. Nathan could tell because her posture changed.
Not softer.
More precise.
“That’s the part you should be thinking about,” she said.
Adrian glanced between them.
Nathan said, “What does that mean?”
“You left her here.”
“I left her with a concierge in a private terminal for seventeen minutes.”
“You left her somewhere you assumed was safe.”
“Yes.”
Celeste raised her chin.
“And now you want to put all of that on me because it makes you feel better.”
Nathan stared at her.
For one sick second, the accusation worked.
Not because it was fair.
Because it contained something true.
May you like
He had been late.
He had told his driver to bring Emma ahead after a board call stretched past the time he had promised to leave the office. Maya had texted him when Emma arrived. Nathan had answered with a thumbs-up while standing in the elevator.
