A cousin stood beside Diane. ”
You told us this was Ryan’s family’s tradition,” she said. ”
The contributions.
You said it was how they did things.
You made it sound like an honor.”
At the head table, Ryan’s father rose slowly.
He was a quiet man; I’d barely heard him speak all night. ”
It isn’t our tradition,” he said. ”
We’ve never done anything like this in our lives.
And we never would.”
He looked at his son with an expression of terrible gentleness. ”
I’m sorry, Ryan.”
And that was the end of it, really.
Not the screen, not the emails, not even the invoices.
This.
The moment Whitney looked around the ballroom — the room she had spent 1.2 million dollars to make into a monument to her own importance — and found that there was no one left in it willing to defend her.
Not her guests.
Not her husband.