Chapter 2
The wedding stopped without an announcement.
I sent my capos downstairs and told them to keep the guests seated until the musicians finished their set.
No gossip.
No spectacle.
No one turning Preston’s mother into reception entertainment.
Then I changed rooms.
The bridal suite smelled like perfume, flowers, and the marriage that would never happen.
I wanted none of it.
We moved to the small library overlooking the east lawn.
Preston came voluntarily.
Warren did not.
Two bodyguards escorted him.
He hated that.
Good.
Domenic stayed.
I poured nobody a drink.
“Tell me about Isolde.”
Warren sat with both hands on his cane.
“She left sixteen years ago.”
Preston was twenty-three then.
Old enough to remember.
“Why?”
“She was unstable.”
Preston repeated it automatically.
“My mother had problems.”
I looked at him.
“What problems?”
He opened his mouth.
Stopped.
Good.
Labels weaken when someone asks for details.
Warren answered.
“She was emotional. Suspicious. Difficult.”
“Did she threaten anyone?”
“No.”
“Hurt anyone?”
“No.”
“Steal?”
“No.”
“Betray Hale?”
His pause lasted slightly longer.
“No.”
I leaned back.
“So what made her unstable?”
Warren’s jaw tightened.
“She wanted to leave.”
There.
A woman choosing a door had become evidence of sickness.
Domenic looked disgusted.
Preston looked confused.
Not angry yet.
Confused.
Warren continued:
“She wanted to take Preston with her.”
Preston shook his head.
“She wanted me to betray Dad.”
“No,” Domenic said.
Preston turned.
Domenic had apparently decided silence had lasted long enough.
“She asked you to come with her.”
“That is betrayal.”
“Only if your father convinced you leaving him meant leaving the family.”
Preston’s face hardened.
Exactly.
I looked at Warren.
“What did you do when she tried?”
Nothing.
Then Preston glanced toward the hall where the golf club had been left.
A tiny movement.
I saw it.
“What did he do?”
Preston’s eyes met mine.
For the first time since he raised that club, there was something other than anger in them.
Shame.
“He broke things.”
“What things?”
“My mother’s things.”
Warren snapped:
“That is enough.”
Preston ignored him.
Good.
“Mirrors. Lamps. Her desk.”
Then quieter:
“Once he smashed the nursery door even though I was already twenty.”
I stared.
“Why?”
Preston swallowed.
“Because she packed a suitcase.”
May you like
The lesson had never been a golf club.
The lesson was that leaving would make the entire house explode around her.
