Emma's manager found her at eleven forty-seven.

His name was Gerald — mid-fifties, perpetually harassed, a man who had been running event catering for twenty years and had never once had a staff member become involved in a billionaire's private legal meeting.

He appeared at the door of the private room, looked at Emma, looked at the room, looked at Emma again.

"Carter," he said.

"Gerald."

"Can I — are you — " He stopped.

Tried again.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

He looked at the table.

At Vincent Moretti.

At the laptop.

At Richard Hale, who was speaking in low tones to his attorney on the phone in the corner.

At Victoria Langford, who had not spoken in twenty minutes.

"I need to speak with my employee," Gerald said to the room generally, in the tone of a man who was not at all sure he was allowed to say that.

"Of course," Vincent said.

Gerald stepped back into the corridor.

Emma followed him, pulling the door partially closed behind her.

For a moment Gerald just looked at her.

He was a practical man, not unkind, and Emma had always found him fair.

He was also a man whose business depended on relationships with venues and clients, and she had spent the last two hours in the middle of a confrontation involving one of Chicago's most powerful families.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

She told him.

All of it, from the moment she had seen Victoria's hand rise to the moment she had been brought into the private room.

She kept it factual.

She didn't apologize, but she didn't perform confidence she didn't feel either.

Gerald listened without interrupting.

When she finished, he was quiet for a moment.

"You grabbed a client," he said.

"I stopped her from striking an elderly woman in a wheelchair."

"She's not just a client.

She's—"

"I know who she is."

Gerald rubbed the back of his neck.

"Emma.

You understand what this puts me in."

"I do," Emma said.

"And I understand if you have to let me go.

I'm not going to pretend I didn't know the risk when I made the choice." She held his gaze.

"But I'd make the same choice again."

Gerald looked at her for a long moment.

He was not a man who showed much, but something moved across his face — not quite admiration, not quite frustration, something in between.

"I'm not letting you go," he said.

Emma blinked.

"I'm not letting you go," he repeated, as though he was still deciding whether he believed it himself.

"You protected someone who needed protecting.

I've been in this business long enough to know that doesn't happen as often as it should." He straightened.

"But I want you back on the floor as soon as you're done in there, and I want no more incidents tonight."

"There won't be," Emma said.

"Good." He turned to go, then stopped.

"Your father.

Is he doing better?"

Emma paused.

She had mentioned her father's illness once, months ago, in passing.

She hadn't known Gerald had retained it.

"He's managing," she said.

Gerald nodded once and walked back toward the ballroom.

Emma stood in the corridor for a moment alone.

The sounds of the party — muted now, subdued — drifted from somewhere beyond the closed doors.

Her feet still hurt.

Her hands had finally stopped shaking.

She thought: I still have a job.

She pushed the door open and went back in.

Vincent was standing near the window when she returned.

Richard Hale had finished his call and was sitting with his hands folded on the table, looking at nothing.

Victoria had asked for water twenty minutes ago and was holding the glass without drinking from it.

Diane looked up when Emma entered.

"Everything all right?"

"Yes," Emma said.

"I still have a job."

Something shifted in Diane's expression — brief, warm, gone quickly.

"Good."

Isabella, from her wheelchair, said nothing.

But she watched Emma cross the room and sit back down, and when Emma glanced at her, the older woman gave a single, small nod.

Vincent turned from the window.

"We're nearly done here," he said.

"Richard, your attorney has confirmed receipt of the documentation.

The formal process begins Monday morning.

You're free to go."

Richard stood without speaking.

He straightened his jacket — the same gesture he had made in the ballroom, Emma noticed, the same automatic reassembly of composure — and walked to the door.

Carver stepped aside.

At the threshold, Richard stopped.

He didn't turn around.

"You should know," he said, to the room, to no one specifically, "that I did what I did because I believed the trust was being mismanaged.

I believed I was correcting something."

"The people who will review the documentation," Vincent said, "will take that into account."

A pause.

"It won't help much," Diane added quietly.

Richard walked out.

The door closed.

Victoria set down her water glass.

It made a small, precise sound on the table.

"My turn," she said.