Chapter 6 - Every Person Who Owes Me Money
Blake’s overcoat was warm around my shoulders. His hand rested lightly at my elbow, steadying me without making me feel weak.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Not badly.”
His eyes moved over my soaked dress, my shaking hands, the fountain, my father, the guests, Penelope in her wedding gown, my mother looking anywhere but at him.
“Who touched you?”
I looked at my father.
Blake followed my gaze.
Franklin tried to recover first. Men like him always mistake proximity to power for possession of it.
“Mr. Campbell,” he said, stepping forward with a smile that had worked on smaller men. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”
Blake did not offer his hand.
“No.”
The single word cut the garden in half.
My father swallowed. “Elena has always been dramatic. This is my daughter’s wedding. Emotions run high.”
Penelope stood. “She ruined my reception.”
Blake looked at her.
She sat back down.
A few guests shifted uncomfortably.
Then Blake turned toward the crowd.
“You just humiliated my wife in front of every person who owes me money.”
The sentence moved through the garden like a cold wind.
Faces changed one by one.
A hotel developer near the bar stopped breathing. A banker in a cream suit looked down at his shoes. Two real estate brokers who had been laughing near the fountain suddenly found something urgent in their phones. Even Penelope’s new father-in-law went pale.
My father stared at me.
“Wife?”
I lifted my chin.
“Yes.”
The word was simple.
May you like
It destroyed him.
Because every insult he had thrown at me for being unwanted now sat in the air beside Blake Campbell, and the entire city heard the contradiction.
