Several guests gasped.
Marcus stepped between them.
“You’re making a mistake.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Move.”
“Listen to me.”
“Move.”
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Not everything needs to happen in front of two hundred people.”
Dominic glanced around the garden.
Business partners.
Relatives.
Journalists invited to cover the engagement.
People who had watched him survive Elena’s death.
People who had watched Vivienne gradually enter his life as the compassionate old friend who had helped him rebuild himself.
Perhaps Marcus was right.
Perhaps this should happen privately.
Then Aria said something from Rosa’s arms.
“She pulled it.”
Dominic turned.
Aria touched the torn shoulder of Elena’s dress.
Vivienne went white.
Dominic stared at her.
“You tore the dress?”
“It was an accident.”
Aria shook her head violently.
“She say give it.”
“Give what?” Dominic asked.
Aria pointed again.
“The shiny.”
Vivienne moved toward the child.
“Aria, sweetheart, you’re confused.”
Dominic stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
Vivienne stopped.
“What shiny thing?” Dominic asked Aria.
The child struggled for the words.
“Mommy put shiny in bird.”
Vivienne dropped her champagne glass.
It shattered across the stone terrace.
And Dominic saw something in her face.
Not guilt.
Not embarrassment.
Terror.
He reached forward, caught the necklace, and snapped the thin gold chain.
Vivienne cried out.
Dominic held Elena’s ring in his palm.
Vivienne immediately grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t.”
He looked at her.
She sounded breathless.
“Don’t what?”
Vivienne’s eyes fixed on the ring.
“Dominic, please.”
Marcus caught his sister’s arm.
“Stop talking.”
Dominic looked from one sibling to the other.
And suddenly understood that whatever was happening had very little to do with jewelry.
He examined the ring.
There it was.
The crescent-shaped nick.
Elena had made it accidentally while trying to open a champagne bottle with the edge of the ring at their third anniversary dinner.
Dominic had laughed at her for twenty minutes.
She had threatened to throw him into the hotel pool.
It was hers.
“Where did you get this?”
Vivienne’s lips trembled.
“I found it.”
“Where?”
“At Elena’s apartment.”
“She didn’t have an apartment.”
Silence.
Marcus muttered, “Vivienne.”
Dominic heard him.
“So there was an apartment?”
Vivienne looked trapped.
Dominic closed his fist around the ring.
“Answer me.”
“She had somewhere she went sometimes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember the jewelry.”
“That’s enough,” Marcus snapped.
He shoved Dominic’s shoulder.
The mistake was immediate.
Dominic seized Marcus by the front of his jacket and drove him backward against a stone pillar.
Women screamed.
Security guards rushed forward.
Dominic’s head of security, Matteo Bellini, raised a hand.
“Stay back.”
Marcus struggled.
“Get off me!”
