Casey finished the paragraph, turned the napkin, and slid it across the table.
“I’m transcribing,” she said, “the first section of the divorce petition currently sticking out of your husband’s briefcase.”
For one beat, no one moved.
Then Cynthia went white.
Preston looked from the napkin to the briefcase, and then to Casey with a new expression, one that had not been on his face all evening. Interest. Not social interest. Not male vanity. Recognition. The cold fascination of a man who had just discovered a blade hidden in plain sight.
Casey continued, her words carrying clearly through the dining room.
“It includes a conduct clause reducing the settlement substantially if either spouse causes a public scandal before filing is complete. If I remember correctly, and I do, the reduction is eighty percent.”
A woman near the bar made a choked sound. Somewhere behind Casey, a fork clinked onto china.
Cynthia stared at the napkin as if it might rearrange itself into mercy.
“You’re lying,” she whispered.
Preston took a slow sip of scotch and set the glass down with exquisite care. “No,” he said. “She isn’t.”
Cynthia turned to him so fast her earrings flashed. “Preston.”
“She quoted it almost exactly.”
The room seemed to contract.
Casey could feel her own pulse in her fingertips, but outwardly she remained still. It was too late now to retreat. Words, once released, were arrows. Better to aim well.
“You read my private document?” Cynthia demanded, voice pitching upward.
“It was visible,” Casey said. “And legible.”
“You little spy!”
Cynthia grabbed her water glass and threw it.
The water hit Casey across the shoulder and chest, icy and humiliating. Gasps swept the room. A senator’s wife at the next table rose halfway from her seat, appalled. Phones appeared openly now. Discretion had fled. Spectacle had won.
Cynthia’s hand closed around the empty bottle next, her face twisted with the kind of rage that only appears when someone who has always relied on social status discovers that status is not armor, merely costume.
“I will have your job,” she shrieked. “I will ruin you.”
“Sit down, Cynthia,” Preston said.
He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The command struck the air like a gavel.
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