Chapter 6: The Rider

Easton read it twice.

I watched his lips move on the word fiancee.

His face went white, then a blotchy green.

"What is this?"

Tinsley grabbed his arm with both hands.

"It's not what it looks like. It was a gift from a friend. I don't know why his office wrote it up like that."

"A friend." Easton pulled his arm free. "A friend insures a four-carat ring for his fiancee?"

"Easton, please, listen to me."

"In September." He was looking at the date now. "You were picking out flowers with my mother in September."

His mother, at the front table, put down her glass.

Tinsley turned to the room and let the tears come.

"I didn't know how to say no to him," she said. "He kept insisting. I didn't want to hurt anyone."

For three years, that voice had worked on every person in every room.

It didn't work on Easton.

He held up his own ring between two fingers, the one he'd just tried to give me.

Then he dropped it into the champagne tower.

It clinked down through three glasses and sank.

"Don't call me," he said.

He walked out.

His father stood, buttoned his jacket, and looked at Quentin for a long second.

"We'll talk about Singapore," he said. "Another time."

The rest of the Lathrops followed him out, one table at a time.

Then the room was just the Talcotts and two hundred guests and a slideshow that wouldn't come back on.

Tinsley sank into a chair with her face in her hands.

Three of her friends rushed to her.

Quentin came at me.

"Are you proud of yourself?" His voice shook. "Do you have any idea what you just cost this family?"

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