Chương 4
He shrugged slightly.
“Your husband put his hands on me in a hotel ballroom. There’s a room full of witnesses. Might as well keep one thing simple.”
Damien stepped toward him.
Elena moved between them.
“Enough.”
Damien stopped.
She had never physically put herself between her husband and anyone before.
The realization settled into both of them.
He looked at her face.
Something in his expression softened.
“Elena.”
She stepped back.
“Don’t.”
He lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at the broken chain in her hand.
“No, you’re sorry this happened.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Maybe not.”
She gave him the same answer Thomas had given Victor.
It felt ugly.
She did not care.
Hotel security called the police because, as the manager later explained, the incident involved physical contact, visible injury, and more witnesses than could reasonably be interviewed before midnight.
Thomas declined medical treatment.
He also declined to make a dramatic accusation.
He described the chain being pulled from his neck, said he had not threatened Damien, and showed the red abrasion. When the officer asked whether he wanted to pursue charges, Thomas rubbed his thumb over the edge of his wallet.
“I want the report.”
“That’s not the same question.”
“I know.”
“Do you want charges?”
Thomas looked across the library at Elena.
“No.”
Damien’s expression shifted.
Thomas added, “Not tonight.”
The officer nodded.
“That decision may not entirely be yours, but it matters.”
Victor made two calls in the hallway.
Nora quietly arranged for the cake to be boxed.
Most guests left within an hour, though not before several videos appeared online. Nothing showed the locket clearly. One clip captured Damien grabbing Thomas. Another caught Elena saying Dad? before the person recording lowered the phone.
By eleven thirty, someone had posted it with a caption asking whether the Cross wedding had been crashed by a dead relative.
Elena sat in the bridal suite in her wedding gown and watched the view count pass fifty thousand.
Nora came in carrying two paper cups of coffee.
“I thought brides were supposed to drink champagne.”
“Most of them don’t have police interviews between the first dance and dessert.”
Elena took the coffee.
It was too hot.
She held it anyway.
Nora sat in the chair by the window.
For a while neither woman spoke.
Traffic moved far below them. Headlights made white ribbons against wet pavement.
Elena looked at her reflection in the glass.
The gown suddenly looked like a costume.
“Did you know?”
Nora shook her head.
“About Thomas?”
“No.”
“About Damien having my messages screened?”
Nora hesitated.
Elena looked at her.
“I knew his office sometimes contacted vendors before things reached you.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.”
A beat passed.
“Then what did you know?”
Nora folded the cardboard sleeve around her coffee.
“I knew Damien liked information before you had it.”
Elena closed her eyes.
That sentence found too many places to land.
His habit of reading restaurant reviews before dates so nothing surprised them.
The private weather alerts.
The background check he had ordered on a contractor after Elena mentioned the man made her uncomfortable.
The time he had quietly called her gynecologist’s office because Elena forgot the date of an appointment and he wanted to put it in their shared calendar.
She had called him attentive.
Her friends had called him intense.
Her mother had been dead too long to call him anything.
“Where is Thomas?”
“Still downstairs.”
“Why?”
“He said he didn’t want to leave before you decided whether you wanted to talk to him again.”
Elena looked at Nora.
“And Damien?”
“With his father.”
Of course.
She stood.
The dress was heavy.
For the first time all day, she hated its weight.
“Can you help me out of this?”
Nora did not ask whether the wedding was over.
She simply found the hidden fasteners.
Twenty minutes later Elena wore hotel sweatpants, a cashmere cardigan someone had sent as part of a bridal gift package, and no shoes.
She found Thomas in a service corridor near the ballroom loading dock.
He sat on an overturned plastic crate with a cup of vending-machine coffee between both hands.
His brown boots were dusty.
The image irritated her.
Everything about him irritated her now.
The jacket.
The coffee.
The fact that he was not crying.
The fact that part of her had wanted him to.
“You could have told me before tonight.”
Thomas looked up.
“Yes.”
“You could have found me.”
“Yes.”
“You knew where I lived?”
“Not always.”
“But sometimes.”
“Yes.”
“You knew who I was?”
“Yes.”
“You knew I thought you were dead?”
“Not until six years ago.”
She stopped.
“What happened six years ago?”
“I found an interview you did.”
Elena frowned.
She had given dozens.
“You talked about your mother’s foundation. The reporter asked about family. You said your father died when you were a child.”
She stared at him.
“And you did nothing?”
Thomas’s fingers tightened around the cup.
“No.”
“Six years.”
“I know.”
“Do not say you know.”
He nodded.
“All right.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the loading dock doors.
A catering worker rolled a cart past them, saw Elena, and immediately looked away.
Thomas waited until the wheels stopped rattling.
“Because by then I’d been sober eight years. I had a job. A place. I had gotten good at telling myself the worst thing I’d ever done was staying away because I thought you wanted me gone.”
His voice remained even.
“Then I found out you thought I was dead. That meant all the excuses I’d built had to move.”
“Move where?”
“Onto me.”
Elena said nothing.
He looked back at her.
“I should have contacted you that day.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Cowardice.”
The simplicity of the answer made her angry.
“Try again.”
Thomas swallowed.
“I was afraid you’d ask where I’d been.”
“I’m asking now.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Right.”
May you like
He set the coffee on the floor.
“When I got out of prison, I sent letters. They came back. I drove to Connecticut twice. The first time your aunt’s attorney met me in the driveway. Second time a deputy did.”
