Chapter 4: The Harbor Lunch

The Harbor Lunch started at noon, and by 12:10 everyone in the ballroom had seen the video.

Imogen walked in on Percy's arm because that was the second term, and he had agreed to it in front of eleven witnesses.

He walked stiffly beside her.

She could feel him counting the steps to the table.

Two hundred women in good suits turned their heads at the same time.

A murmur ran ahead of them down the center aisle.

"There she is."

"Ninety-nine times."

"I'd have died of shame."

Camille was waiting at the head table with a clipboard and a sympathetic face.

"I put you two right beside me," she said, and squeezed Imogen's wrist. "Ignore them. They're vultures."

They sat.

Percy kept his hands in his lap.

Imogen opened her napkin and kept her eyes forward.

At the next table a woman in a pearl collar and a lavender suit rose to her feet with a glass of red wine.

"A toast," she called, and the room quieted, eager. "To Imogen Castell, who finally learned how to say yes."

Laughter spread through the ballroom in a warm wave.

Someone clapped.

Imogen did not move.

The woman crossed to their table, still smiling.

"No hard feelings, darling," she said. "But a woman should know when she's been put down. You hung on to him so long, we were embarrassed for you."

She tipped the glass.

Red wine ran down the front of Imogen's cream dress and pooled in her lap.

The ballroom went silent.

Imogen looked down at the stain.

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