Chapter 2 - The Test He Never Announced
The applause never returned.
Ethan finished with three sentences about the foundation and left the stage before anyone could turn the moment into theater.
The side corridor behind the ballroom was colder than the dining room. He pushed hard on the rims, angry at the carpet, angry at Brooke, angry at the ache spreading through his lower back.
Mostly, he was angry at the look Isabella had given him.
Not pity.
Not awe.
Disapproval.
He found her twenty minutes later near the service elevator, stacking empty champagne flutes into racks.
“Isabella.”
She looked over. “Mr. Vance.”
“Did I do something to offend you?”
She glanced toward the kitchen doors. “I'm working.”
“So am I.”
“That speech looked more like an ambush.”
Ethan almost laughed from surprise.
“You're very comfortable criticizing the chairman of the company that owns this hotel.”
“No, I'm not.” She slid another glass into the rack. “I'm trying not to lose my shift.”
“Then why say it?”
Isabella finally faced him.
“Because you spent the whole night seeing who would treat you like a person while nobody knew you were still in charge.”
“Yes.”
“And what did you plan to do with the answers?”
Ethan's jaw tightened. “That depends on the person.”
“Exactly.”
She returned to the glasses.
He waited.
She sighed.
“My dad used to do that when I was a kid.”
“Do what?”
“Set up secret tests. Leave twenty dollars on the counter and see if I touched it. Tell my brother something wrong and see whether I'd correct him. Ask a question he already knew the answer to.” She shrugged. “Then he'd decide what kind of person we were based on whether we passed something we didn't know we were taking.”
Ethan stared at her.
“That is not what I did.”
“It kind of is.”
“He was testing children.”
“You were testing everybody.”
The kitchen door opened behind her. A manager in a burgundy jacket stepped out.
“Isabella, we need the east station reset.”
“On it.”
She looked at Ethan once more.
“Brooke was awful to you,” she said. “A lot of people were. But you didn't just learn who they were tonight. You gave yourself a reason not to tell anyone what you needed.”
Then she pushed the glass rack through the doors.
Ethan remained in the hallway.
No one spoke to him that directly anymore.
Not since the accident.
People softened every sentence around him as if his spine had broken his hearing too.
He hated it.
And apparently he hated honesty almost as much when it arrived from the wrong person.
His sister Claire found him ten minutes later.
Claire Vance was thirty-five, a labor attorney with no formal role in the family company and therefore the only person in Ethan's life who could tell him to stop being an ass without checking a compensation agreement first.
She leaned against the wall.
“That went well.”
“Go away.”
“Brooke looks like she swallowed a fork.”
“Claire.”
“And Chad looks like he wants to move to Canada.”
Ethan started toward the elevators.
Claire walked beside him.
“You shouldn't have done it like that.”
He stopped.
“Did Isabella send out a newsletter?”
“Who's Isabella?”
“Never mind.”
Claire folded her arms. “You knew the board thought you were considering permanent leave. You knew Chad thought Monday was a real succession vote. You let the rumor run because you wanted to see who revealed themselves.”
“I wanted unfiltered information.”
“You wanted emotional leverage.”
He looked away.
Claire's voice softened.
“You've been hurt, Ethan. That doesn't make every secret test wise.”
He hated that two women had told him the same thing in one night.
The elevator arrived.
Inside, Claire pressed the lobby button.
“Are you going back to work Monday?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Physically?”
He bristled. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means your office still has a step at the private entrance because you rejected the renovation three years ago as unnecessary.”
Ethan stared at her.
Claire gave him a humorless smile.
“You're about to discover how many things your company considered unnecessary before you needed them.”
The lobby doors opened.
Brooke stood there waiting.
She was alone now. No Chad. No cameras.
Her silver gown looked less like armor under hotel fluorescents.
“Five minutes,” she said.
Claire looked at Ethan.
He nodded.
She left.
Brooke stepped into the elevator and let the doors close.
“You humiliated me,” she said.
Ethan stared at her.
“You pushed my wheelchair away from a table so you could stand beside another man.”
“Yes,” Brooke said. “And that was cruel.”
The immediate admission took some of the force out of his anger.
She pressed her lips together.
“But don't pretend tonight was only about dignity. You wanted us to fail you.”
He looked at her.
“You wanted proof,” she continued, “that everyone left because they were shallow and you were right not to trust anyone after the accident.”
“That isn't why you left.”
“No.” Her eyes shone. “I left because you wouldn't let me stay.”
Ethan's hands tightened around the rims.
Brooke laughed once, without humor.
“You think you remember the last nine months perfectly because you were the one in the hospital bed. You don't.”
“What are you talking about?”
She held his stare.
“You fired me as your emergency contact from the ICU, Ethan.”
He went still.
Brooke continued.
“You told the nurses not to give me updates. You told Chad to handle the company. You told Claire to handle the doctors. Then you told me to stop coming because you didn't want me watching you learn how to transfer into a shower chair.”
Ethan's mouth went dry.
He remembered pieces.
Morphine.
Pain.
Rage.
Brooke crying beside the bed.
Him telling her to go home.
He had remembered that as mercy.
Apparently, she had not.
Brooke stepped toward the elevator doors as they opened again.
“What I did tonight was ugly,” she said. “I'm not asking you to excuse it.”
She looked back.
“But if you're going to judge everyone by who they were at their worst around you, at least include yourself in the test.”
May you like
Then she walked away.
Ethan remained inside until the elevator doors closed on him again.
