“You would have been kind?”
Beatrice opened her mouth.
Lorenzo waited.
No answer came.
“That,” he said softly, “is the problem.”
Beatrice looked around for support.
She had plenty of friends in the ballroom.
People who had accepted invitations to her dinners, donated beside her at galas, praised her husband in public, and laughed at her jokes.
Not one stepped forward.
Five minutes earlier, their silence had protected her.
Now it condemned her.
Beatrice’s face sharpened.
“Do not lecture me about kindness, Lorenzo.
Everyone in this room knows what kind of man you are.”
Silas moved instantly.
Lorenzo lifted one finger, stopping him.
“She’s right about one thing,” Lorenzo said.
A faint murmur moved through the crowd.
Sophie watched him carefully.
“I have never asked anyone here to mistake me for a saint,” Lorenzo continued.
“But tonight this ballroom is supposedly raising money for vulnerable families, elderly patients, and people who need help.
And while the checks are being photographed, my mother was mocked because she appeared to be one of those people.”
Nobody looked comfortable anymore.
A photographer near the stage lowered his camera.
Lorenzo noticed.
“No photographs of my mother.”
The camera disappeared immediately.
Isabella tugged on Sophie’s hand.
“Can we go somewhere quiet?”
Sophie bent toward her.
“Of course.”
Lorenzo heard.
He signaled to Silas.
“Find Nurse Hopkins.
Use the library upstairs.
No crowd.”
Then Isabella resisted when Silas offered his arm.
“She comes too.”
She meant Sophie.
Sophie glanced toward her supervisor.
He was glaring at her as if he could calculate the cost of every second she remained beside Isabella.
Lorenzo followed her gaze.
“Is there a problem?”
The supervisor answered too quickly.
“No problem at all.”
“Five minutes ago you were firing her with your eyes.”
“I was not—”
“You were.”
Sophie finally spoke.
“It’s okay.
I knew I might lose the shift.”
Lorenzo turned to her.
“And you stepped in anyway.”
She shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention.
“Your mother was scared.”
“You didn’t know she was my mother.”
