Chapter 6: The Hotel Bar

I showed Denton the text.

He read it twice, and his jaw tightened.

"Go," he said.

I raised my eyebrows. "I expected an argument."

"I'd rather you hear what he has to say," he said. "But I'll be in the room."

"He said come alone."

"Then he'll be disappointed."

The bar was on the ground floor of a hotel in the Loop, and it was nearly empty at four o'clock.

Denton took a booth in the far corner with a newspaper held open in front of him.

He looked like a man reading about the markets.

I knew he was watching every breath I took.

Preston was already at a table by the window with a whiskey in front of him.

He had not shaved.

His collar was open, and the blond hair he was so proud of hung limp over his forehead.

He stood up when he saw me, and for a second he looked relieved.

"Lizzie," he said. "Thank you for coming."

"You have ten minutes," I said, and I sat.

He sat down slowly and rubbed his face with both hands.

"I don't know where to start."

"Start with why you said I was a thief in front of two hundred people."

"I didn't want to."

"But you did."

"My mother found the necklace case empty an hour before the toasts," he said. "She was hysterical."

"Whitney came to me and said she'd seen you near the study."

"And you believed her."

His eyes slid away.

"Preston," I said. "Did you believe her?"

"It doesn't matter now."

"It matters to me."

"Fine. No," he said, and he said it to the whiskey. "I didn't believe her."

I sat back in my chair.

"Then why?"

"Because Whitney is pregnant," he said. "And it's mine."

He said it in a whisper, and he looked at me.

I let the silence go on until he flushed.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I never meant for you to find out like that."

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