“Interesting.”
“What?”
“You believed the money gave you power when you offered it.
Now that I accepted, suddenly the offer means nothing.”
A few guests looked away to hide their reactions.
Alex heard them anyway.
He stepped closer.
“You think owning half this place gives you the right to embarrass me?”
For the first time that night, something colder entered her expression.
“I didn’t embarrass you.”
She glanced around the ballroom.
“I walked through a door.”
Then she looked back at him.
“Everything else, you did yourself.”
Alex’s face went red.
The woman in silver whispered his name, warning him to stop.
He didn’t.
He had spent too many years believing that volume could repair a loss of control.
“You let me think you were staff.”
“I was helping the staff.”
“Same thing.”
“No.
It isn’t.”
The distinction hung in the air.
Alex had seen a gray uniform and decided that the person inside it was safe to insult.
The revelation was not that a waitress had magically become worthy of respect.
The revelation was that he had believed respect depended on what she owned.
The woman in red seemed determined not to let him escape that fact.
“Would you have spoken to me that way if I entered wearing this dress?” she asked.
Alex opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
“Would you have offered to replace the woman beside you if you knew my name was on ownership papers connected to this estate?”
Again, silence.
The woman in silver’s face changed.
The humiliation had shifted direction, but she was now trapped inside it too.
She looked at Alex with open disgust.
“You said you’d dump me and marry her?”
Alex turned.
“You were standing there.
You heard me.”
“I thought you were being an idiot.
I didn’t realize you followed her and offered money too.”
“Don’t start.”
“Don’t tell me not to start.”
The same guests who had laughed with them now watched the couple fracture in full view of the ballroom.
Alex lowered his voice.
“Can we not do this here?”
The woman in silver gave a humorless laugh.
“Here was good enough when you wanted an audience.”
She stepped away completely.
Alex reached for her arm.
She pulled it back.
The woman in red did not interfere.
She simply watched.
Alex noticed and turned on her again.
“Happy now?”
