Chapter 10: For the Cameras

Sylvia accepted the dinner invitation within a minute.

Iris had expected nothing less.

She wanted the woman in the house, at the table, under her grandmother's chandelier, so that she could watch her face.

Odette had made Dane promise one thing before the guests arrived.

"Say nothing about the voice memo," she told him. "Not tonight. Sylvia reads faces better than anyone alive. We tell Iris afterward."

Dane had agreed, and Iris noticed that he was quiet all through the afternoon, as though he were holding something back.

At seven they sat at the long table in the dining room.

Odette took the head.

Sylvia sat at her left, in pearls, with a bottle of wine she had brought as a gift.

Philip sat across from Iris, handsome and well rested.

Daphne sat beside him and kept her eyes on her plate.

"To the happy couple," Sylvia said, raising her glass.

Nobody else raised theirs.

"I'll drink to the couple when I see one," Odette said. "So far I've seen a very tall man standing very far from my granddaughter."

"Three feet is the house rule," Iris said.

"It's a strange engagement," said Philip pleasantly. "He can barely look at you. Maybe he's afraid you'll tell the room what he did."

Dane's hand stopped on his fork.

Iris felt the whole table watch him.

She understood what Philip wanted.

He wanted Dane to flinch, or snap, so that Sylvia could say she had warned them all.

Dane set his fork down very slowly.

"I'm not afraid of what she says," he said evenly. "I deserve every word."

Before dinner he had unlocked the desk drawer and put the envelope in his jacket.

Now he took it out, long and cream.

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