19. Nell #2
Betty's hand went to her mouth. Ray's eyes went wide. Kiana looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time.
The town found out.
Six years of them thinking Beckett had bought this building for me. Six years of me letting them think it because correcting them meant saying what I'd sold out loud.
The house my mother had lived in for forty-three years. The house I'd grown up in.
I'd sold it. Used the money for the down payment.
Not one dollar of Beckett's money was in this building.
Hazel had just said it for me. In front of the whole town. In front of Beckett.
I looked at him.
He'd gone completely still.
His face had emptied out. Not shock. Not confusion.
Grief.
Like he'd just understood something he should have worked out years ago.
He turned to Talia.
When he spoke, his voice was cold. Factual. No heat in it at all.
"Ten thousand hospital blankets a year," he said.
"Built to survive two hundred washes. Fourteen people who know the difference between good work and a photographer's opinion of it.
A woman who can tell by touch which of them sewed a piece.
Set against a fashion house I no longer run and a princess who mistakes a lens for a kingdom. "
He paused.
The room was so quiet I could hear the hum of the industrial refrigerator in the back.
"This mill will be here long after your crown is a footnote," he said. "And long after Crowe is."
I felt my breath catch.
Rule two.
The rule I'd written in my own hand four months ago. The rule that said he would not diminish this work, this building, or the people in it.
He'd just kept it.
In public. In front of witnesses. In front of press.
On the first occasion it had ever been tested.
Talia's face twisted. She looked at him like he'd struck her.
Then she turned to me.
Like this was my fault. Like I'd done this to her.
I felt something shift inside me.
Not anger. Not triumph.
Just clarity.
I stepped out from behind his shoulder.
Not fast. Not hurried.
Just forward.
Into the center of the room. Into the light.
I looked at her. Didn't flinch.
"Yet here you are, your highness," I said, "begging us to smear that same crown with the very mud you look down on while you stand in it. You can keep your crown. We never wanted it in the first place, and we'll manage without it."
Talia stared at me. Her mouth opened. Closed.
She had nothing left to say.
Hazel moved. Quiet. Efficient. She stepped to the door and opened it.
"This way," Hazel said.
Talia looked around the room. At Winston. At Beckett. At me.
Nobody moved.
She walked to the door. Stopped.
"You'll regret this," she said.
"I doubt it," I said.
The door closed behind her.
The lock clicked.
The same lock that had closed on me six months ago. Closed on her now.
Hazel's hands had put her out. Not mine. Not Beckett's.
I felt the adrenaline start to come down.
The room breathed again.
Dorcas laughed. A short, sharp sound.
"Well," she said. "That was something."
"That was overdue," Hazel said.
Ray grinned. "Remind me not to make Nell mad."
"Too late for that," Kiana said. "You asked her to fix the edger last week and she gave you a look that could've stripped paint."
"That's because he asked me to fix it instead of reading the manual," I said.
The room laughed.
Real laughter. Easy laughter.
The kind that comes when the fight is over and everybody's still standing.
"She really thought we'd say yes," Dorcas said. "After everything."
"She thought Beckett would say yes," Ray said.
"She thought wrong," Winston said quietly.
I looked at him. He was watching me. Something in his face I couldn't quite read.
Approval, maybe. Or just acknowledgment.
"Thank you for coming," I said.
"Thank you for having us," Winston said. "And for the partnership."
"It's a good deal," I said.
"It is," Winston said. "You drove a hard bargain."
"I know what the cloth is worth."
"You do," he said. "And you didn't back down."
"No."
"Good," Winston said. He glanced at Beckett. Something passed between them. Quick. Wordless.
Then Winston turned back to the press, back to the event, and the room started moving again.
Betty came over. Took my hand.
"Your mother would be proud," she said.
I felt my throat close.
Couldn't speak.
Just nodded.
"You stood up for this place," Betty said. "For all of us. That's what Rosalie would've wanted."
"I don't know if she would've approved," I said quietly. "Of how I paid for it."
"She would've understood," Betty said. "She knew what it took to build something."
"She never said."
"She didn't have to," Betty said. "You knew anyway."
She squeezed my hand once and let go.
Kiana walked over. Grinned.
"That was amazing," she said.
"What was?"
"What you said to her," Kiana said. "About the crown. I wanted to cheer."
"You didn't, though."
"I was too scared to move," Kiana said. "Thought if I breathed too loud she'd turn around and eat me."
Ray laughed. "She's not a dragon."
"Could've fooled me," Kiana said.
"She's just a person," I said.
"A person who thought she could walk in here and we'd all bow," Dorcas said. "She forgot where she was."
"Or she never knew," Hazel said.
"Well, she knows now," Ray said.
Beckett was watching me from about ten feet away.
I reached into my pocket. Pulled out my phone.
Found his name. The number I'd called a thousand times. The number he'd killed five months ago so nobody else could reach him.
The number he'd restored five days ago.
I looked at him.
He looked back.
I pressed call.
Ten feet away, his phone rang in his pocket.
The room went quiet again. Watching.
He pulled it out. Looked at the screen.
My name, I thought. That's what he's seeing.
He answered on the first ring.
"Yes?" he said.
His voice in my ear. His voice in the room.
Both at once.
"Just checking," I said.
He smiled. A real one. The kind I hadn't seen in so long I'd almost forgotten what it looked like.
Warm. Certain. No hesitation in it at all.
"It works," he said.
"I can see that."
He didn't end the call. Neither did I.
We just stood there. Ten feet apart. Phones to our ears. Looking at each other.
Then he lowered the phone. Ended the call.
Put it back in his pocket.
I did the same.
I crossed the floor to him. Stopped about a foot away.
"What time will you be home?" I asked.
He didn't hesitate.
"Six," he said.