Chapter 8: The First Time I Ever Slapped Someone

"What did you just say?"

Diana stared at her, eyes wide with disbelief, as if she was seeing Claire for the first time.

Claire. A weak, powerless nobody living off someone else's roof since when did she get to talk like this?

If Diana hadn't broken off her own engagement years ago, she wouldn't be standing here as anyone at all let alone with the nerve to be looked down on.

Her face twisted, and she spat the words through clenched teeth.

"You're nothing but a stray Grandma Wade picked up off the street. Even married to Nathan, you're still just staff with a wedding ring."

"Everyone who ever raised you ends up dead your parents, your uncle, Grandma Wade"

Crack!

The slap landed hard and fast, before Claire had even fully decided to throw it.

The black Maybach pulled up at the curb just as it happened. Nathan, catching the scene from inside, had his assistant wheel him out.

"Claire, have you lost your mind?"

He didn't know what had triggered it, but the force behind that slap was nothing like the woman he thought he knew.

There was something in her voice just now cold, foreign that didn't match the Claire he'd grown up beside.

Diana sank down, bracing herself against his wheelchair, and threw herself into his lap, sobbing.

"Nathan, my head everything's spinning."

"This is my fault. I shouldn't have bid against her for the brooch."

"I'm the one who let her do it. If you're angry, be angry with me."

Nathan's voice was clipped with impatience; he genuinely didn't understand what had come over Claire.

When his eyes met hers, something about the blankness in her expression sent an unfamiliar jolt of unease through him.

It felt like something was quietly slipping away from him, faster than he could name it.

He softened, tried again. "Let's leave it here. I'll buy you two bigger rubies. No more of this."

Claire had always been the gentlest person he knew; she never raised her voice, let alone her hand.

There had to be more to tonight than what he'd seen.

But she used to tell him everything. If that brooch had mattered this much, why hadn't she said so?

"I don't want rubies. Just transfer twenty million into my account."

Claire's voice stayed level as she shook out her aching, numb hand.

First time she'd ever hit anyone. She had no idea what she was doing. It felt satisfying and painful in equal measure.

At least now she knew where the brooch had gone there was still a chance of getting it back.

She didn't need more jewelry. But she saw no reason to turn down money that was hers regardless.

Something complicated moved behind Nathan's eyes. The girl he'd watched grow up suddenly felt like a stranger.

"Nathan, my head really hurts."

Diana let out another pained moan.

Nathan helped her up and turned to his assistant. "Hospital. Now."

Mr. Hughes came to help Diana into the car while the assistant wheeled Nathan.

The group hurried toward the Maybach, leaving Claire standing alone under the streetlamp.

"Ms. Whitfield!"

She turned toward the voice. "Assistant Reed?"

Nathan, halfway into the car, paused and glanced back.

"Here. This is yours."

Reed held out a red velvet jewelry box.

Claire felt the weight of it settle into her palm, disbelief written across her face.

"This is?"

Her hands trembled as she opened it, and Rose Heart caught the light, glowing.

"Why?"

She could barely get the words out, cradling the box against her chest with both hands.

"Chairman Pryce wanted you to have it. Please accept it."

Claire didn't stop to ask further all she wanted was her mother's brooch, safe in her hands.

"Let me get you an account number, so I can transfer the money to Mr. Pryce."

Reed laughed. "The Chairman said if you send the money, he'll take the brooch back."

"But"

"He said it's simply being returned to its rightful owner. Just take it."

Reed gave her shoulder a light pat and turned to go.

Returned to its rightful owner.

Those words hit her like a gust of clean air, clearing the fog from her mind instantly.

She remembered.

Mom. Sebastian Pryce was Mom's friend.

She'd seen the photograph once, tucked away in the family album, her mother and a young Sebastian Pryce, both barely twenty, full of life.

Even after two decades, she could still trace the handsome young man in that photo onto the refined, understated chairman she'd met that morning.

Claire pressed the box to her chest, tears rising, unable to stop herself from smiling through them.

—

Inside the Maybach, Nathan's mouth pressed into a thin, tight line, something dark simmering behind his eyes.

Diana, watching him, asked carefully, "Who's this Mr. Pryce they were talking about?"

"Claire doesn't know how the world works. Don't let some man buy his way into her good graces with jewelry."

"Don't say things like that about her. She's not that kind of person."

Nathan turned to the window instead of answering further, his reflection staring back at him in the dark glass.

He could still see Claire, standing there talking to that man, her whole face lit up with something close to joy.

He'd defended her out loud. But inside, something restless and ugly kept twisting through him.

—

Claire took a cab home, still half-convinced she'd dreamed the entire evening.

She dug out the old photo album and found the picture, her mother, young, laughing, standing beside Sebastian Pryce.

It wasn't the only one, either. He appeared in four or five photos spanning her mother's years from middle school through university.

Claire frowned. She'd met every one of her mother's close friends growing up or thought she had. She couldn't recall her parents ever once mentioning his name.

But she'd been so young back then. Maybe she'd simply forgotten.

She set the jewelry box by her pillow, one hand resting against it.

Something this valuable couldn't stay in this house. Better to leave it with Sophie for safekeeping.

She traced the edge of the box, warmth spreading through her chest.

For the first time in five years, she fell asleep smiling.

—

The next morning she came downstairs humming, having woken half an hour early on purpose. Judging by Nathan's expression at the table, he'd been waiting for her.

"Aunt Carol, orange juice, please."

Claire took the seat farthest from Nathan, acting as if he wasn't there at all.

He sat across from her anyway. "Nothing to say to me?"

She considered the question seriously. "When's the twenty million hitting my account?"

"Who gave you that jewelry?"

Nathan's eyes lifted, studying her face the same face he'd known since childhood, day in and day out, never once thinking twice about it.

Looking at her now, though, he found himself noticing things. Every small movement. How none of it ever got old.

Claire, absorbed in her breakfast, missed the look entirely. "A friend of my mother's."

"Your mother's been gone seventeen, eighteen years. What kind of friend holds onto that kind of loyalty enough to burn ten million on a whim for her daughter?"

He paused, watching for a reaction. When she gave none, his frown deepened.

"If you really had friends that devoted, that generous we'd never have had the chance to take you in when you had nowhere else to go."

Claire looked up at him. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"A man doesn't hand a woman a gemstone out of pure decency."

"I know the difference between decent and not. You don't need to worry about it."

She was already uneasy enough about accepting the brooch. If Nathan went and made trouble for Sebastian Pryce over this, it could tarnish her mother's memory along with it.

Nathan lost his appetite and set down his napkin.

"I didn't realize you cared about that brooch so much. It's just a piece of jewelry."

Claire laughed, short and humorless. "If you had known, you'd have sided with Diana anyway. Wouldn't you?"

He hesitated. "I owe her more than I can repay. But you and I are family. The family owes each other things too, that's just how it works."

Claire laughed again, quieter this time, unease settling deeper in her chest.

Owed. She didn't believe she owed him anything at all.

To her mind, neglecting the people closest to you was its own kind of selfishness, dressed up as sacrifice.

If she could go back to before she was eight, she would have held onto her parents tighter. Been kinder. Been there more.

Every word of the exchange carried up the stairwell to where Diana stood, fingers white-knuckled around the railing.

"Mommy, did you draw this?"

Oliver held up a sheet of paper.

On it: a boy with blue eyes.

Diana's eyes sharpened. "That's not yours to take, give it back to Aunt Claire right now."

She recognized the face in the drawing instantly. Claire's ex.

"Claire sorry, Oliver must have grabbed your drawing by accident.”