“Did you love me after you knew?”
She looked toward the estate, toward the windows and gardens she had spent months planning around.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
The answer struck him harder than a lie would have.
She lowered her head. “I wanted this life. I wanted the house. I wanted the wedding. I wanted everyone to see me as someone who had finally escaped being ordinary. I told myself I was building something beautiful, but I kept measuring everything by what it could give me.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“I was cruel to your mother,” she said. “I knew she was trying to love me, and I treated it like a debt. I let my father tell me that kindness was weakness because it made it easier to use people.”
Margaret listened without looking away.
Vanessa stepped toward her.
“Your bracelet was in my dressing room.”
Margaret’s eyes flicked to her face.
“I took it off before the ceremony because my father said it looked old-fashioned. Then I put it in my makeup bag. When I came outside, I gave it to him. He said he wanted to inspect it because he thought it might be valuable.”
Richard had told Vanessa the bracelet was fake, yet he had taken it from her.
Thomas understood immediately.
“He knew what it was.”
Vanessa nodded. “He found a jeweler’s report in his office. The pearls are natural. The clasp is from a maker in Paris. He said it could be worth more than the car I drove here.”
Margaret’s fingers closed around the loose pearl.
“He took it?”
“I saw him put it in his pocket. I thought he was going to return it to you after the ceremony. Then I heard you and him arguing near the rosebushes. I came over, and I was angry. I said you had embarrassed me by making everyone think I cared about an old bracelet.”
Her voice broke.
“I pushed you.”
Margaret’s expression did not change.
“I did not mean for you to fall,” Vanessa said.
“But you laughed.”
Vanessa looked down.
“Yes.”
That single word carried more truth than all her explanations.
Margaret stepped closer. “Why?”
“Because I was scared,” Vanessa said. “Because everyone was looking at me. Because I thought if I laughed first, no one would see that I was ashamed.”
Margaret studied her.
