Chapter 14 — Not Private

A hotel security manager approached, and with him two police officers.

The shove had been caught by the ballroom’s cameras and seen by a dozen guests.

I gave a brief, calm statement while Lucan insisted, his voice climbing, that it had been “a private marital misunderstanding.” One of the officers told him, without any particular emotion, that a public assault does not become private simply because the person struck happens to be wearing your wedding ring.

I had not planned that part.

I want to be honest about it: the acquisition, the audit, the announcement, the board resolutions — all of that I had built, deliberately, over weeks.