“She hit the little boy.”
My cousin stopped.
Her face drained of color.
She looked at Noah, then at the woman.
“You slapped him?”
The woman straightened.
“He was screaming through the reception.
Someone had to do something.”
“So you hit a five-year-old?”
“Don’t exaggerate.
It was a tap.”
Noah flinched when she said it.
I felt his fingers tighten around my dress.
I crouched beside him again.
“Do you want to go somewhere quiet?”
He nodded.
Before I could move, the woman spoke over me.
“This is ridiculous.
Look at the scene she’s making now.”
Several guests reacted to that.
Not loudly.
But enough.
A few heads turned toward her with expressions that hadn’t been there before.
She noticed.
Her cheeks flushed.
The groom’s uncle stepped beside her and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
She pulled away from him.
“No.
Tell me what that call was.”
He said her name too quietly for me to catch, followed by, “Please don’t make this worse.”
She ignored him.
“You can’t cancel our lease because of some personal disagreement.”
I stood again.
“I didn’t cancel your lease.”
Relief flashed across her face too quickly.
Then I finished.
“I instructed my leasing team not to renew it when the current term ends.”
Her expression hardened.
“Your leasing team?”
“Yes.”
“You own this building?”
“My company controls the property.”
For the first time all evening, she had nothing to say.
The silence spread outward through the guests.
I could almost see them recalculating every assumption they had made when Noah and I arrived.
The simple dress.
The inexpensive purse.
The absence of a man beside me.
I hated that part almost as much as the slap.
Not because they had underestimated my bank account.
Because apparently some of them needed to discover I had money before they could decide I deserved respect.
The woman recovered enough to scoff.
“You’re lying.”
The groom’s uncle spoke immediately.
“She isn’t.”
The woman’s head snapped toward him.
