What do we do? I don't know. Those three words spoken by a man who had spent 30 years pretending he always knew were the beginning of the end. Across the room, Victoria was experiencing something she had never experienced before in her entire life. Silence.
Not the silence of an empty room. The silence of a full room that had decided she no longer existed. Her friends were gone. Constants had disappeared into the crowd without a word. Diane had mumbled something about finding her husband and hadn't come back.
The other two had simply turned and walked away, like passengers stepping off a sinking ship without bothering to wave goodbye. Victoria stood alone by the champagne bar. Her glass was still in her hand. Her diamonds still sparkled under the chandeliers. Her gown still cost more than most people's annual salary.
But none of that mattered anymore because every single person in that room was looking at her. And not a single one of them was looking with admiration. She felt it. The shift. The way the air around her had changed from warm to cold.
The way conversation stopped when she walked past. The way a waiter she had snapped at earlier now looked at her. Not with fear, but with something worse. Pity, she set down her glass and walked toward Gregory. Her heels clicked against the marble floor, each step echoing louder than it should have because no one else was making a sound.
Gregory, this is ridiculous. Call him. Call him right now and fix this. Gregory looked up at her and for the first time in 23 years of marriage, he looked at his wife like a stranger. Fix this?
You want me to fix this? You poured wine on a man worth $4 billion and called him garbage in front of 300 witnesses. How exactly would you like me to fix that, Victoria? He's overreacting. It was a misunderstanding.
I didn't know who he You didn't need to know who he was. That's the point. You didn't need to know his name or his net worth to treat him like a human being. Victoria's mouth snapped shut. Her eyes narrowed.
But for once, no words came out. Because somewhere behind the anger and the arrogance, a very small, very quiet part of her brain was starting to do the math. And the numbers were terrifying. Gregory pulled out his phone, dialed Terren's number. It rang once, twice, three times.
Voicemail. He dialed again. Voicemail. Again, voicemail. He typed a text message.