Good.
For a few seconds we just stand there, both of us remembering the same history from opposite sides. He remembers being brought in. I remember allowing it. He remembers feeling underestimated. I remember seeing too late that he mistook patience for weakness. He remembers the deal falling apart. I remember the exact moment I decided not to let him sit at any table of mine again.
He says, “You could have taken the offer.”
“It was a bad offer.”
“It was a profitable one.”
“It was dishonest.”
Voronin spreads his hands slightly. “That’s always offended you more than it should.”
No. What offended me was sloppiness. Greed without discipline. A man trying to rise on ambition alone, without understanding that the structure he wanted to climb would crush him if he put weight in the wrong place.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Today?” He glances toward the chapel lawn beyond the trees. “A front-row seat, maybe. The food looks expensive.”
I say nothing.
He looks back at me and, because he is who he is, lets the silence stretch just long enough to make the next words matter more. “And to see whether you’re still as in control as everyone thinks.”
There it is.
Not the whole truth. Enough of it.
My voice drops. “You came here to test me.”
“No,” he says. “I came because I was invited. The fact that it irritates you this much is just a bonus.”
“Camille invited you.”
His brows draw, as if feigning innocence before he answers. “Yes.”
“Why?”
He smiles again, and I already dislike the answer before he gives it. “Ask her.”
I hold his gaze. He’s telling me something and enjoying the fact that he can do it without saying it plainly.
He looks at me for a second and says, “I’m not the only one you should be watching today.”
The words settle between us.
I don’t ask what he means. That would be giving him too much. He wants me to ask. Wants me looking inward while he stands here pretending to be only a guest with bad manners.
He won’t get that satisfaction.
So I say, “If this is your idea of a message, it’s a weak one.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “You don’t believe that.”
“No,” I say. “I just wanted to see if you’d defend yourself.”
If I throw him out now, I learn nothing.
He’ll leave smiling. Camille will deny whatever arrangement she made with him. Everyone else will spend the day pretending none of it happened. Whatever this is, whatever shape it’s taking around this wedding, disappears back into polite lies before I can get my hands around it.
