Chapter 2 - THE FORTY MINUTES
Marcus returned to Vincent’s office at 8:17 that morning carrying a tablet and an expression Vincent disliked immediately.
“We have the hotel footage.”
Vincent set down his coffee.
“And?”
“Nothing happened in the ballroom.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
Marcus placed the tablet on the desk.
“Because it happened upstairs.”
The security footage showed Grace leaving the ballroom at 8:43 p.m. with Vanessa Hart and three women Vincent recognized from Chicago society pages.
Vanessa was the daughter of Arthur Hart, chairman of Hartwell Development.
More importantly, she had known Vincent for fifteen years.
She had attended his mother’s funeral.
She had once been close enough to the Cole family that newspapers had speculated Vincent would marry her.
That had been before Grace.
The footage showed the women entering a private hospitality suite on the seventeenth floor.
Grace came out thirty-one minutes later.
Alone.
Vincent leaned closer.
She walked normally for six steps.
Then she stopped beside a decorative mirror in the corridor.
Her eyes lifted.
Her entire body changed.
Grace stared at her reflection for perhaps three seconds before pulling her coat closed over her gown.
Then she walked away.
Vincent’s jaw hardened.
“What happened inside?”
“No hotel camera.”
“Guests?”
“Private suite. Registered to the Hartwell Foundation.”
Vincent looked at Marcus.
“You talked to staff?”
“A server remembers champagne being sent upstairs. She also remembers Vanessa asking for a projector.”
“A projector?”
Marcus nodded.
Vincent’s phone vibrated.
Grace.
For one irrational second, he wondered if she somehow knew what he was doing.
He answered.
“Vincent.”
Her voice was tight.
“Where’s the dressing mirror?”
Silence.
He stood.
“You tell me.”
“I thought your people took it.”
“They didn’t.”
Grace breathed unevenly.
“I broke it.”
Vincent said nothing.
“Last night,” she continued. “After you fell asleep. I moved it into the storage room and broke it.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Grace—”
“I cleaned it up.”
That answer angered him more than the broken glass.
She had been standing alone after midnight cleaning shattered pieces of herself from the floor while he slept twenty feet away.
“I’m coming home.”
“No.”
“Grace.”
“You said you wouldn’t push.”
“I’m not pushing.”
“You’re investigating.”
Vincent glanced at Marcus.
Grace knew him too well.
“I asked for hotel footage.”
Her laugh held no humor.
“Of course you did.”
“Something happened.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
“I’m trying to survive being embarrassed without turning it into a war.”
The sentence stopped him.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“Did Vanessa hurt you?”
A long silence.
“No.”
It came too quickly.
Grace hung up.
Marcus waited.
“She lied,” Vincent said.
“Yes.”
“But maybe not about what I think.”
At the penthouse, Grace sat on the bedroom floor beside a cardboard box she had pulled from the closet.
Inside were things from the life she had lived before Vincent.
Her mother’s recipe cards.
Old invoices from Miller and Bloom.
A cracked ceramic Christmas ornament.
And a photograph.
Grace was twenty-two in it, standing beside her mother outside a Milwaukee hotel. Both women were laughing. Grace wore jeans, an old red coat, and no makeup.
Her body had been softer then.
She had been heavier.
And completely unashamed.
Grace touched the photograph.
She had spent years believing she had outgrown other people’s cruelty.
Apparently, cruelty simply learned better manners.
Her phone lit up with a message from Vanessa.
Grace stared at it.
No apology.
Just six words.
I told them not to post it.
Grace deleted the message.
Then she heard the front door.
Vincent.
She stood too quickly.
He appeared in the bedroom doorway.
“You came home.”
“Yes.”
“I asked you not to.”
“No. You asked me not to turn this into a war.”
His gaze fell to the photograph in her hand.
Grace tried to put it away.
Vincent crossed the room.
“Who is that?”
“My mother.”
He studied the younger Grace.
“You look happy.”
“I was.”
“You’re happy now.”
Grace looked at him.
“Am I?”
The question landed harder than accusation.
Vincent sat on the edge of the bed.
Grace remained standing.
Finally she said, “They invited me upstairs because Vanessa said one of the straps on my dress looked loose.”
Vincent waited.
“There were mirrors everywhere in that suite.”
Her voice weakened.
“They had champagne. They were laughing. Someone started talking about dresses that ‘weren’t designed for every body.’”
Vincent’s expression became motionless.
“Vanessa?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Grace folded her arms.
“They made it sound like concern. Like they were helping me.”
She stared at the floor.
“Then Vanessa showed me photographs.”
“What photographs?”
“Me.”
Grace’s eyes filled despite her effort to stop them.
“Getting out of cars. Sitting down. Eating at a restaurant. Bending over to fix a centerpiece at one of your events.”
Vincent stood.
“Someone had been photographing you?”
“For months.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“One of Vanessa’s friends said there was an account.”
“What account?”
Grace shook her head.
“I didn’t see the name.”
Vincent’s phone rang.
Marcus.
He answered without taking his eyes from Grace.
“Speak.”
“We found something.”
Marcus sounded different now.
Not merely concerned.
“We recovered a video from one of the gala guests. It was deleted this morning, but someone had already saved it.”
Grace went pale.
“Vincent, don’t.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because you’ll never be able to unsee it.”
That was precisely why he had to.
Marcus sent the file.
Vincent opened it.
The video began inside the seventeenth-floor suite.
Grace stood before three mirrored walls in her blue gown.
Someone behind the camera laughed.
A woman said, “Turn sideways, Grace. You’ll understand what we mean.”
Another voice added, “Vincent could have anyone.”
Grace’s face changed.
Then Vanessa stepped into frame.
But instead of laughing, she reached toward the camera.
“Enough. Shut it off.”
The recording jerked sideways.
And for half a second, before the screen went black, the mirror behind Grace reflected someone standing in the open doorway.
A man.
Vincent froze the frame.
Grace stared over his shoulder.
Neither of them spoke.
Because the man reflected in that mirror was wearing a distinctive silver watch.
A watch Vincent knew.
He had given it to the man himself.
May you like
Grace whispered the name first.
“Marcus?”
