Chapter 12
The question caught me off guard.
He had remembered after all.
I smiled at him, just a little.
"Yeah, I did," I said.
Richard let out a breath, nodded, and went in first.
I stood there, watching his back, and suddenly my chest ached.
That was Richard all over.
He remembered whether I had eaten, remembered my blood sugar, remembered what my stomach could handle.
He could also hand me to another man on his own wedding day.
His tenderness was real.
He really did give up on me too.
The bridesmaids and groomsmen were sent out to the pool for photos before the ceremony.
Somebody walked us over. The steps had bleached white in the sun, and the water threw light back hard enough to hurt.
The woman from the dressing room came over with a glass in her hand, all warmth.
"Stand over here, Ms. Winters. The light's best on this side."
Her hand barely touched my arm as she said it.
I had taken one step forward when somebody knocked into me from behind.
It wasn't a hard hit.
There was water along the edge of the step, my heel went out from under me, and I pitched sideways with my elbow catching the corner of the marble.
My vision went black for a moment.
Everything around me broke apart.
Somebody screamed and somebody shouted a warning.
I looked down at the cut opened along the outside of my elbow, and the blood was already running down my arm.
The cut wasn't deep.
Blood had a way of frightening a crowd far more than the injury deserved.
Richard was already crossing the terrace.
He pushed through the crowd, locked a hand around my wrist, and pulled me in front of him.
Something heavy went across his eyes in that instant.
It had anger in it, and shock, and a panic he hadn't chosen.
It moved too fast.
It was gone before I could get hold of it.
He looked down at my bleeding arm, and his voice came out low and tight.
"Stella," he said.
I looked up at him.
Then I heard what he said.
Then I heard what he said.
"I told you not to make a scene today."
The whole place went dead silent for a second.
It landed in my chest like something thrown, and my breathing stopped for half a second.
In Richard's eyes, even bleeding was a move I had timed for maximum effect.
He had said something once, drunk and half asleep against my shoulder in the middle of the night.
"I hate people who use themselves to corner me."
I pieced the rest together later, out of things other people let slip.
Richard's mother had hurt herself more than once, trying to force his father home.
Richard had grown up watching all of it.
So of course, he hated that kind of thing more than anything.
Now he had put me in the same category.
I looked down at the cut, and even the pain stopped being worth anything.
I drew my hand out of his and kept my voice soft.
"Okay," I said quietly.
Richard paused.
He probably didn't see that coming.
I looked up at him and gave him a small smile.
"Don't worry," I said.
"I won't make a scene," I added.