Chương 2
“You just said you could be.”
“I said this is absurd.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Margaret’s nostrils flared. “Do not start interrogating me in front of hotel employees.”
A vibration buzzed against the marble.
Claire’s phone.
A message from her younger sister, Rachel.
Parking. Where are you?
Claire turned the phone facedown.
Rachel had driven three hours from Richmond for the rehearsal dinner. Claire had not told her anything yet.
She had not told anyone.
Twenty-six minutes earlier she had been standing in the women’s restroom near the ballroom, reading the accidental message under light so bright it made everyone look ill.
She had read it once.
Then twice.
Then she had locked herself into the last stall and sat on the closed toilet lid because her knees had stopped being reliable.
There had been no cinematic collapse.
No sobbing.
No dramatic phone call.
A woman in the next stall had been complaining to someone on speakerphone about a pharmacy closing early. Two teenagers had come in laughing. Someone had used too much perfume.
Claire had stared at Ethan’s words until the letters looked detached from language.
I just need to get through Saturday.
Saturday was tomorrow.
She had been the thing he needed to get through.
Eventually she had opened the calculator on her phone.
That was the part she would later hate admitting.
Not calling her sister.
Not confronting Ethan.
Calculating.
Venue balance. Catering. Flowers. Transportation. Hotel rooms. Rentals. Entertainment.
She had started adding the remaining payments because numbers were easier than humiliation.
Numbers stayed where you put them.
People did not.
Now Rachel sent another message.
Claire?
Ethan was still talking.
“—whatever you think that message means, we need to discuss it before you blow up our entire wedding.”
Claire looked at him.
“Our wedding.”
“Yes.”
“The one you were going to finish before leaving me.”
His eyes flicked toward the servers.
“Not here.”
“You wrote it.”
“Not here.”
“You wrote it while I was here.”
Margaret cut in. “For God’s sake, people say things when they’re stressed.”
Claire turned to her.
“Which part?”
Margaret folded her arms.
“The part where I pay?”
“Claire.”
“The part where he leaves me?”
Margaret’s cheeks colored.
“Or the gifts?”
Daniel lowered his gaze to his clipboard.
Ethan rubbed both hands over his face.
“It was a private conversation.”
Claire almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because of everything he could have chosen, he had chosen privacy.
Rachel appeared at the end of the hallway in a green dress and silver flats, carrying a garment bag over one shoulder. Her smile vanished when she saw the cluster around the desk.
Claire wished, suddenly and fiercely, that her sister would turn around.
Rachel did not.
She came closer.
“What happened?”
Nobody answered.
Rachel looked at Claire, then the crossed-out list, then the phone.
“Oh,” she said.
It was an absurdly small word.
Claire felt more exposed by it than by Margaret’s shouting.
Ethan stepped toward Rachel. “This is between me and Claire.”
Rachel blinked at him.
“Then why is your mother yelling loud enough for valet to hear?”
“Rachel,” Claire said.
Her sister looked at her.
“Please.”
Rachel shut her mouth.
That was unusual enough that Claire almost smiled.
Daniel asked, “Ms. Bennett, should we move into the office?”
Claire glanced toward the ballroom.
Workers were pretending not to watch. Guests for the rehearsal dinner had started appearing near the elevators in cocktail clothes, slowing as they sensed trouble.
The wedding party would arrive soon.
The last thing Claire wanted was an audience.
The second-to-last thing she wanted was to protect Ethan from one.
“Office,” she said.
Margaret immediately protested.
Claire walked away before she finished.
Daniel’s office was behind the events desk, windowless and overcooled, with framed hotel awards on one wall and a dying pothos plant on a filing cabinet. There were only three chairs.
Margaret took one.
Ethan took another.
Claire remained standing.
Rachel leaned against the wall.
Daniel closed the door but left it unlocked.
“Before anything else,” he said, “I want to separate the relationship issue from the contract issue.”
Margaret made a disgusted sound.
Daniel ignored it.
“The ballroom is contracted for tomorrow. The hotel has already incurred labor, food preparation, rentals, and other costs. I cannot promise a full refund. I can stop additional charges that have not been incurred, and I can contact third-party vendors we’re coordinating with. Some have separate cancellation terms.”
Claire nodded.
“How much is already nonrecoverable?”
“I need accounting to confirm.”
“Estimate.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Hotel side only?”
“Yes.”
“Possibly twenty-eight to thirty-five thousand.”
Rachel inhaled.
Margaret looked at Claire.
Claire had expected worse.
That realization made her feel sick.
Daniel continued. “Outside vendors may increase that.”
“How much of tomorrow’s balance hasn’t been charged yet?”
“Approximately forty-one thousand with the final food and beverage reconciliation.”
Ethan sat forward. “So if we just stop everything now, we lose thirty grand?”
Claire looked at him.
“We?”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Claire, I didn’t mean it that way.”
Rachel stared at the ceiling.
Margaret leaned toward Daniel. “Nothing gets canceled. We’ll sort this ridiculous misunderstanding out tonight.”
Daniel did not move.
“Only Ms. Bennett can reverse her instruction.”
Margaret looked at Claire.
Claire saw the request forming before pride reshaped it into a command.
“Tell him to stop this nonsense.”
“No.”
“You are going to destroy a wedding over one text message.”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Claire surprised herself with the answer.
“Ending an engagement.”
Ethan stood so quickly the chair wheels rolled backward and hit the wall.
Rachel straightened.
Margaret said Claire’s name in a tone usually reserved for people who had embarrassed themselves in public.
Ethan stared at her.
“You don’t mean that.”
Claire touched the ring on her left hand.
For months she had worried the stone was slightly too large for her narrow fingers. Margaret had called it tasteful, which Claire had later understood was not a compliment.
May you like
She pulled it off.
There was a pale groove underneath.
