And they had all watched Damson Thackeray shove his event-staff wife toward the corner a moment before.

Now the great man’s fury was pointed not at some rival or some failure of service, but at Damson, over the very woman he’d been ashamed of, and none of it made sense yet, and the whole room held its breath waiting to find out what it meant.

Damson let go of her at once.

“Sir, I—”

Fairholme didn’t even look at him.

Slowly, the old man stepped closer to Aracely, and his eyes were shining with tears.