Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN IN THE FOUNTAIN
My father shoved me into my sister’s wedding fountain while two hundred guests watched.
Somebody laughed before I hit the water.
That was the sound I remembered afterward.
Not the splash.
Not the cold shock of the marble basin against my hip.
Laughter.
I surfaced with wet chestnut hair plastered across my face and my champagne silk dress clinging to my body.
Richard Bennett stood above me in his black tuxedo, looking pleased with himself.
“You came alone because nobody could ever want you.”
My sister Penelope covered her mouth.
She was pretending to be shocked.
The smile behind her hand said otherwise.
I gripped the fountain edge and pulled myself upright.
“Don’t touch me.”
Dad reached down anyway.
I refused his hand.
Around us, the garden reception at Royal Palms Plaza looked absurdly beautiful. White roses climbed gold frames. Palm leaves moved in the Miami breeze. Champagne caught the golden-hour light.
My humiliation had become entertainment inside a photograph-perfect wedding.
“Get out,” Dad said.
“What?”
“You’ve already made enough of a scene.”
“You pushed me into a fountain.”
“After you embarrassed your sister.”
My offense had been arriving alone.
Penelope had spent six months asking whether I was “still doing the independent woman thing.”
Dad had spent dinner telling strangers I was thirty-four, unmarried and “brilliant at making bad personal choices.”
When I finally told him to stop discussing my life like a failed investment, he put both hands on my shoulders.
Then came the fountain.
Now he grabbed my wet forearm and started dragging me toward the garden exit.
“Get out before you embarrass this family any more.”
I twisted loose.
“Don’t ever put your hands on me again.”
That got another reaction from the guests.
Not laughter this time.
Interest.
Dad straightened his jacket.
“You need to learn gratitude.”
Then heads began turning toward the entrance.
Penelope noticed first.
Her face changed.
Blake Campbell walked through the garden.
He was supposed to arrive twenty minutes later.
Tall, dark-haired, black suit, no tie. The same calm expression he wore when reporters shouted questions outside shareholder meetings.
Several men immediately moved toward him.
My father did too.
Of course he did.
For nearly four months, Richard Bennett had been trying to get Campbell Harbor Group interested in financing the redevelopment of Bennett Event Group’s waterfront venue.
Blake was not just wealthy.
He was the man everyone at that wedding suddenly wanted to know.
Dad extended his hand.
“Blake. Richard Bennett. We’ve spoken through—”
Blake pushed his reaching hand aside.
Not violently.
Simply as though it were in the way.
Then he walked directly to me.
I had never seen my father look confused by another man ignoring him.
Blake stopped at the fountain.
His eyes moved over my soaked dress.
The red mark forming around my forearm.
My bare left hand.
I had taken off my wedding ring before entering the reception because Penelope had begged me not to reveal my marriage at her wedding.
I had agreed.
That decision seemed ridiculous now.
Blake removed his cashmere coat and wrapped it around my shoulders.
“You okay?”
“I will be.”
Dad laughed nervously.
“Claire has always been dramatic.”
I looked at him.
“You wanted me to remember this moment, Dad?”
He frowned.
“I will.”
Blake turned.
His voice became very quiet.
“You just threw my wife into a fountain.”
Nobody laughed.
Penelope’s champagne glass slipped from her fingers and shattered.
Dad stared at me.
Then Blake.
Then back at me.
“Your what?”
Blake reached beneath the coat and took my left hand.
I had slipped the ring back onto my finger while he walked toward us.
His wedding band matched mine.
Penelope whispered, “No.”
My father’s face drained of color.
Not simply because his unwanted daughter had secretly married the billionaire he had spent months trying to impress.
Something else had frightened him.
I saw it immediately.
Blake saw it too.
Dad looked toward his company’s chief financial officer standing near the bar.
May you like
The man looked away.
That was the moment I understood Blake’s investment pitch and my humiliation were connected by something nobody had told me yet.
