He was close enough for me to see the gray at his temple that his publicist always edited out.
Close enough to see the vein pulsing under his jaw.
Close enough to remember the night he proposed at the Bellagio fountains and told me I was the only person in the world who made him feel real.
“You’re going to want to step back,” I said.
He blinked.
Not because I had threatened him.
Because I hadn’t.
Marcus knew yelling.
He knew crying.
He knew bargaining.
He knew women throwing wine, reporters shouting questions, board members begging for another quarter.
But calm scared him.
Calm meant information.
And information was the only thing Marcus Vale respected.
His lead attorney, Bennett Ashford, rose from the defense table with a face like polished stone.
“Your Honor, may the record reflect that Mrs. Vale is refusing medical assistance and attempting to dramatize a minor contact incident?”
A minor contact incident.
The phrase floated through the room like poison dressed in silk.
My attorney, Claire Donnelly, stood so fast her chair struck the railing behind her.
“Objection. Counsel is characterizing an assault on a pregnant woman as—”
“Sit down, Ms. Donnelly,” Judge Whitmore said.
Claire froze.
So did I.
Not because he sounded angry.
Because he sounded too calm.
My father had used that voice only three times in my life.
Once when I was nine and a drunk driver jumped the curb outside our church picnic.
Once when I was seventeen and I told him I was going to marry the first boy who bought me a bus ticket to Nashville.
Once when my mother died, and he stood in our kitchen with her hospital bracelet in his hand and told me the casseroles would go in the freezer because people should not have to perform gratitude while grieving.
Claire sat.
Bennett Ashford’s mouth twitched.
He thought he had won a point.
Marcus thought so too.
Savannah definitely did.
