“She’s the reason my company found its voice this year.”
The sentence settled over the table like a bell.
My mother’s hand flew to her necklace.
Nicholas blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Emmett set the crayon down and turned fully toward him. “Jenna has been consulting with Stewart Dynamics for three years. Quietly. Professionally. Brilliantly.”
Every word was measured, not cruel, not loud. That somehow made it more powerful.
I felt heat climb my neck.
“Emmett,” I said gently, “you don’t have to—”
“I know,” he replied. “But I want to.”
Nicholas looked at me, really looked at me, perhaps for the first time all day.
“You work with him?”
The question came out smaller than he intended.
“I do,” I said.
“As a writer,” Emmett added. “And as a strategic communications consultant.”
Nicholas swallowed. “But you said your blog—”
“You assumed my blog was all I did,” I said quietly.
That was the first time I saw Allison move. She came to Nicholas’s side, her ivory gown whispering softly against the floor.
“Nicholas,” she said, her voice low enough that only those near the table could hear, “you told me Jenna was between jobs.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
My stomach tightened, not from fear, but from something almost like sadness. This was supposed to be his wedding day. I had not come to expose him. I had come because, despite everything, he was still my brother.
“I didn’t want to make today about this,” I said.
Allison looked at me with a tenderness that caught me off guard.
“About what?”
Before I could answer, the bandleader announced that dinner service would begin shortly. The pause gave Nicholas the escape he needed.
“We’ll talk later,” he said quickly, smoothing his jacket. “Mr. Stewart, please, whenever you’re ready, I’d love to introduce you to my partners.”
Emmett smiled politely. “After dinner.”
Nicholas’s eyes flickered toward me.
Then he nodded and walked away.
For a few minutes, nothing happened except the gentle return of noise. Plates arrived. Children complained about vegetables. Great-Aunt Beatrice woke up, asked whether the ceremony had started, and then fell asleep again halfway through her salad.
Emmett ate his dinner at Table Nineteen without a trace of discomfort.
The children adored him.
Milo judged his dragon “pretty good for a grown-up.” Ella asked whether CEOs had bedtime. A little boy named Henry wanted to know if Emmett owned a rocket ship.
“Not yet,” Emmett said.
Henry frowned. “Then what’s the point?”