The Dinner That Fell Apart

"Damian Wolfe," Shelby said. "He owns the hotel. And the Nightingale, where I worked before."

The man inclined his head.

"Please don't get up. I heard you were celebrating. Thought I'd bring something for the table."

A waiter appeared with two bottles of wine.

Clara kept both hands in her lap.

The glasses changed his face. So did the clean shirt, the absence of rain and blood. She searched for certainty and found only a familiar angle to his mouth.

He didn't look at her again.

Lorraine was already making room.

"How kind. Shelby didn't tell us she knew you so well."

"She works hard," he said.

Shelby blushed.

Julian stood, introduced himself, and shook the newcomer's hand. They exchanged the smooth, empty remarks men used when neither had decided what the other was worth.

Damian took the spare chair near the door.

Clara wished he had taken one in a different building.

"As I was saying," Lorraine continued, "a wedding is a family occasion. You can't ask us to invite everybody and then expect us to pay for feeding them."

Julian set down his glass.

"I'm covering the venue, the food, the flowers, the photographer, and Clara's dress. I'm not asking you to pay for the wedding."

"But a family settlement—"

"Aunt Lorraine," Clara said.

Her aunt ignored her.

"It's only reasonable that the people who raised a girl receive some acknowledgment. Martin and I have done everything for her."

Martin leaned back, saying nothing. He had worn the same leather jacket to every occasion Clara could remember, including funerals.

Julian's fingers moved against his wineglass.

"Clara and I have discussed what she'll need. Privately."

The word landed with a small, deliberate weight.

He was promising her support. He was also telling her family where the conversation ended.

Lorraine heard only the first part.

"Well, if you're giving her money anyway—"

"We don't need a big wedding," Clara said.

Everybody looked at her.

She smiled because she had learned young that people listened longer if she looked pleasant.

"We can have a small ceremony. A dinner afterward. That would settle the expense."

"Don't be ridiculous," Lorraine snapped. "What would people say?"

"That we got married."

A cousin laughed and stopped when Lorraine turned toward him.

"You've always had that clever mouth. Your parents would have wanted a proper wedding."

Clara felt the familiar tightening beneath her ribs.

Her parents were useful people to invoke. They had been dead—or missing, which had become the same thing in family conversation—for sixteen years. They could be made to want anything.

"Then use the income from Bennett Row," she said.

Martin looked up.

Lorraine put her napkin down.

At the far end of the table, Damian stopped turning his glass.

Clara reached into her handbag and took out the folder she had brought.

"Actually, this is a good time."

Julian's hand touched her knee beneath the table.

She kept going.

"The properties were supposed to come under my control when I turned eighteen. You said I was too young. Then you said we'd transfer everything when I finished university. Now I'm home. We can make an appointment and go through the paperwork."

Lorraine gave a thin laugh.

"Listen to her. Paperwork at a family dinner."

"It's my parents' property."

"And who looked after it?"

"That's what I'd like to see. The accounts."

Martin reached for the folder.

For one hopeful second, Clara thought he meant to read it.

Instead, he pulled out the top sheet and tore it in half.

The sound was small. Everybody heard it.

"You come back here with a university degree and think you can put us on trial?"

Clara looked at the torn paper between his hands.

She had printed that copy at work during lunch, carefully feeding the thick stock into a machine that jammed if you rushed it.

"That isn't the only copy," she said.

"Ungrateful little girl."

"Martin," Julian said quietly.

Her uncle looked at him and changed his expression.

"I'm not talking to you, Julian. This is family business."

"She's my family too."

For a moment Clara loved him so fiercely it hurt.

Then he turned to her.

"But this isn't the place."

Her heart sank.

"There never seems to be a place."

"Clara."

"I asked when I was eighteen. I asked before my last year at school. I couldn't pay my fees, Julian. There are shops on that street bringing in rent, and I couldn't get the money to finish."

She had finished the coursework. The university still held the documents she needed until her outstanding balance was settled. She had a temporary job and a folder full of explanations where her diploma should have been.

Lorraine began crying without any tears.

"She had a roof. Food. Clothes. My own children went without."

"Somebody else's old clothes," a cousin murmured.

Clara couldn't tell whether he meant to defend her or embarrass her.

Julian's hand closed more firmly around her knee.

"I've told you I'll help with the fees."

"I know."

"Then why are you doing this?"

She turned toward him.

He looked immaculate. Dark suit, white cuff, the watch his father had given him when he joined the family firm. He had never once been afraid that asking for what belonged to him would cost him a place to sleep.

"Because it's mine," she said. "Because my parents built it. Because there's a house there that used to be my home."

"You're upsetting yourself over a few run-down storefronts."

She looked at him for a long time.

"They're not a few storefronts to me."

His jaw tightened.

He was thirty. She was twenty-two. Most of the time the difference made him seem steady and reassuring. Sometimes it made him speak to her as if she had failed a test he hadn't explained.

"Think about what you're saying," he said.

"I have."

He withdrew his hand.

When he stood, Clara thought he was going to ask her to come outside.

Instead, he buttoned his jacket.

"Call me when you're ready to talk sensibly."

He shook two relatives' hands, nodded to the hotel owner, and left.

He didn't ask how she was getting home.

After that, the dinner disintegrated.

Lorraine blamed Martin. Martin blamed the relatives who had encouraged Lorraine. Someone asked for the wine to be packed up. Someone else said they had children to collect.

By the time Clara found her coat, half the room was empty.

Martin stopped beside her chair.

"Lend me your car. I need to pick up the others."

"No."

"Don't start again."

"It's not mine to lend."

Julian had given her the Audi to use. Everything she had came with an explanation.

Martin swore and went to find another set of keys.

Eventually, Clara was alone with the remains of lunch.

She counted the glasses, the plates, the half-eaten desserts. Thirty people. Wine she hadn't ordered. Food she hadn't tasted.

She took out her credit card.

The waiter returned with it a minute later.

"Mr. Wolfe has taken care of the bill."

Clara looked toward the door.

The hotel owner stood there with the tattooed man from the clinic.

Certainty arrived all at once.

Damian took off his glasses.

She got to her feet so quickly the chair scraped the floor.

"I need to go."

"You've been trying to leave since the day we met."

She hurried toward the door.

He moved before she reached it, catching her at the waist when she tried to slip past him. The strength of his arm brought her to a stunned stop against his chest.

"Let me go."

He did, though he kept one hand near her elbow as if she might bolt into a wall.

"I paid your bill. You could at least insult me before you leave."

She glared up at him.

"You're awful."

"There she is."

His smile faded when he saw her wet eyes.

"What exactly do you like about him?"

"That's none of your business."

"He leaves you crying with the check. I'm curious."

"You threatened to take my eyes out."

"And I still managed better manners over lunch."

She wanted to hit him. She wanted to laugh. The combination made her feel dangerously close to tears again.

The door opened hard behind them.

Vince stepped inside, his phone still in his hand.

"Boss. We have a problem."

Damian turned.

"Martin Bennett took the Reeds' van. Nine people in it."

Clara went cold.

Vince looked at her.

"It went into a pond off Quarry Road."