Chapter 19
That was the truth.
I had regretted loving him. Defending him. Translating his ambition into honor. Mistaking his need for partnership. I had regretted every time I smiled beside him while becoming smaller in the photograph.
But I would not regret tonight.
Sloane remained near the stage, abandoned in white.
For a moment, she looked young.
Not innocent.
Just young.
She looked at me and whispered, “What happens to me?”
The room waited.
They wanted blood.
I could have given it to them.
Instead, I stepped close enough that only she and the first row could hear.
“That depends,” I said, “on whether you keep crying or start telling the truth.”
Her lower lip shook.
“I have messages.”
“I know.”
“He said he was leaving you.”
“I know.”
“He said the money was his.”
“I know.”
Her eyes filled again.
This time, I did not enjoy it.
“Then why didn’t you stop me?” she whispered.
I looked at the donor wall. My name gleamed where Chase’s ego had expected his own.
“Because some women only understand a locked door after they walk through it.”
She swallowed.
“Am I going to jail?”
“That depends on what you signed and what you spent.”
The cruelty in me wanted to let the sentence hang.
The woman in me, the one still alive somewhere beneath silk and documentation, added, “Get a lawyer. Not his.”
Sloane nodded once.
Then she turned and walked out through a side door, no longer a mistress, not yet a witness, leaving behind the faint smell of expensive perfume and ruined mythology.
Julian came to stand beside me.
The room still buzzed. Donors shifted into clusters. Board members converged around Dr. Reeves. Cecilia was already speaking with two men from a regulatory firm. The gala had become a battlefield with champagne.
“You did it,” Julian said.
“No,” I said. “He did most of it.”
“That was generous.”
“I’m trying moderation.”
He looked at the plaque.
“Your mother would have liked that.”
I glanced at him.
“You remember my mother?”
“She once told me I had honest eyes and dangerous timing.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She also told me not to let you marry a man who thought mirrors were windows.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
It was small.
But it was mine.
Julian looked at me then, and the entire ballroom seemed to recede. Not because revenge had made room for romance. It had not. I did not want to be rescued by another man at the scene of one man’s destruction.