The Woman in Emerald

The first thing Victoria Delacroix did after slapping me was look around to see who had watched.

Not at my face. Not at the gold bracelet her ring had caught when I lifted my hand too late.

At the audience.

Thirty people stood beneath the boutique's crystal chandeliers. Someone lowered a champagne glass. A woman beside the evening gowns pressed two fingers to her mouth.

Nobody stepped forward.

Victoria smoothed the burgundy satin over her hip.

"Now you can leave," she said.

My left cheek throbbed. I tasted blood where a tooth had caught the inside of my lip.

Behind her, the ivory coat on its pedestal stood under a little brass plaque that read THE DELACROIX HERITAGE COLLECTION.

I looked at the coat for a second, trying to steady myself.

Then I took out my phone.

"Elaine, I need you to contact the flagship's general manager. End tonight's reception and have the transition team come here."

My general counsel stopped speaking in the background.

"Camille? What happened?"

"I was assaulted in our store."

Victoria laughed.

"Your store?"

I kept the phone against my ear.

"Preserve the security footage. I'll explain the rest when you arrive."

Three minutes earlier, I had been asking about silk.

Lucy Bennett, the young sales associate beside me, had unfastened a dress so I could examine the lining. The price was twenty-eight thousand dollars. Its label promised silk throughout, but the lining crackled between my fingers with the dry resistance I remembered from cheaper fabric in my father's shop.

"Could you check the material specification?" I had asked. "This feels different from the label."

Lucy had leaned closer.

"I can ask the workroom."

That was when Victoria appeared.

She took the hanger from Lucy hard enough to rattle the metal stand.

"You have Mrs. Whitcomb waiting upstairs, and you're letting someone paw through stock?"

"Mrs. Whitcomb is with Daniel in the fitting room," Lucy said. "This guest had a question."

Victoria looked at me, taking in my emerald jumpsuit, ivory handbag, and natural hair gathered low at the nape of my neck.

Her eyes paused on my face.

"The alterations entrance is around the corner."

I glanced down at the hanger in her hand.

"I'm looking at a dress."

"This is a private event."

"Your doorman welcomed me inside."

"Then he made a mistake."

Lucy reached toward the garment. "Ms. Delacroix, I offered to help her."

Victoria turned on her.

"And that is why you are still selling clothes instead of managing people."

The young woman's face went scarlet.

I had grown up watching rich customers speak over my father's bent head. I remembered how his shoulders changed when they did it, how carefully he set down the scissors.

"She was doing her job," I said.

Victoria smiled without warmth.

"I wasn't speaking to you."

"You were insulting her in front of me."

A man in a navy suit moved closer. I recognized Adrian Blake from invoices in the acquisition files.

"Let's keep this pleasant," he said to me. "Perhaps you should come back during ordinary shopping hours."

He had not asked Victoria to apologize.

"I was having a pleasant conversation until she interrupted it."

Victoria stepped between Lucy and me.

"You don't get to walk in here and tell me how to run my house."

"Then run it without humiliating your staff."

Her expression changed.

I saw her hand move. I still didn't believe she would do it until her palm struck my cheek.

Now my phone was warm against my ear, and Elaine was asking whether I needed medical attention.

"Not at the moment," I said. "Please make the calls."

I ended the conversation.

Adrian studied me with sudden concentration.

"What did you say your name was?"

"Camille Morgan."

His mouth parted.

Victoria had not noticed. She was beckoning to a security guard beside the door.

"Please remove this woman."

The guard approached slowly. His gaze went to my cheek and then to the guests.

"Ma'am, would you come outside with me?"

"Are you asking the woman who hit me to leave as well?"

He stopped.

"I need to speak to my manager."

"You should."

Victoria made an impatient sound.

"Her name is on the guest list nowhere. Mine is on the building."

Adrian touched her elbow.

"Victoria, stop talking."

She pulled away. "Don't embarrass me."

The boutique manager emerged from the back corridor with his phone in his hand. His name was Peter Grant. I knew that from his staff biography, which had described twenty-two years in luxury retail and exceptional judgment under pressure.

He had watched the slap from behind a counter.

"Ms. Morgan?" he asked.

I nodded.

He looked as though someone had tightened his collar.

"I've just spoken to Mr. Chen. I didn't realize you would be visiting tonight."

"That was the point."

Our operating director had planned my formal introduction for Monday. The purchase of the controlling stake had closed twelve days earlier, through the holding company whose name most guests would never have heard. My team had handled negotiations while I completed another acquisition in Chicago.

I had come to see the business I had bought before anyone could rehearse a welcome.

Peter swallowed.

"Would you prefer to use the office?"

"In a moment. Please end the reception. Make sure everyone receives their belongings and has transportation if they need it."

Victoria stared at him.

"Peter, what are you doing?"

He did not look at her.

"Of course, Ms. Morgan."

"I asked you a question."

Peter turned at last.

"Morgan Capital controls the company now, Ms. Delacroix. Ms. Morgan is its founder and the new chair."

Someone behind the champagne table whispered my name.

Adrian dropped his hand from Victoria's elbow.

I saw the exact moment she understood. Her eyes moved from Peter to me, then back again, searching for a version of the room in which she still mattered most.

"My father would have told me," she said.

"You can ask him," I answered.

I put my phone into my handbag. My fingers missed the clasp once. I made myself close it properly.

"Lucy, would you show me somewhere I can sit down?"

The girl nodded so quickly a strand of hair slipped loose.

As she led me toward the corridor, Victoria stepped into our path.

"Obviously, there's been a misunderstanding."

Up close, I could smell her perfume.

My cheek hurt every time I moved my mouth.

"You understood exactly what you were doing," I said. "You just didn't know who you were doing it to."

She moved aside.

In the mirror beside the office door, I caught my reflection: dark skin, a swelling cheek, my mother's bracelet crooked against my wrist.

I had spent twelve days owning this house.

I would spend the next several weeks discovering what it had cost my family.