Someone gasped. Rachel opened her eyes and saw Matt rushing to the stage. Hailey planted herself in his path and he froze, hands outstretched like he wanted to grab her. But he shouldered past and snatched up the frame.
Rachel didn’t realize that Nathan was gone until she saw him next to Matt, trying to yank the portrait away. She rushed to the stage, but Joe beat her there. He grabbed Nathan’s arm and pulled hard, breaking his grip on the canvas. Matt stumbled back, and it clattered to the floor.
“That’s enough!” Joe shoved Matt toward the stairs and jabbed his finger in Nathan’s direction. “Both of you. Go.”
The room had become a sea of iPhones, backed by a discordant symphony of high-pitched outrage and gleeful shock. Rachel was numb. Hailey confronted her with tears still sliding down her cheeks. “Tell Matt I quit.” She walked away with the regal posture of someone who’d been crowned prom queen instead of revealed as a jilted lover.
Rachel spoke into the microphone. “I apologize for the disruption, everyone. Thank you for coming, and for your generous donations.” She looked out at the crowd. Half of them were ignoring her. The other half were trying to get another glimpse of her naked portrait. “There are donation cards at your table, and I hope you’ll consider additional gifts to a worthy cause.”
There was still no sign of Sofia. Rachel rushed offstage. She intercepted security and somehow managed to convince them to focus on crowd control rather than the earlier drama. A few minutes later, she found Nathan, Matt, and Joe facing off in the darkened special collections area. Matt flung curses over Joe’s shoulder, while Nathan glowered, a silent, impenetrable wall.
“You need to calm down,” Joe said.
Matt sputtered something about calling security, but froze when he saw Rachel. His long glare felt endless, and she floundered beneath it, trying and failing to summon actual words. She remembered how ashamed he’d looked when she pushed his birthday cake to the floor. Was there a right thing to say in moments like this? Sorry I hurt you, but I wanted him more.
“How long have you been fucking my wife?” Matt refused to look at Nathan, trying to provoke them both.
“She’s not your wife,” Nathan answered, giving him nothing but stoic contempt.
“Not my—” Matt’s eyes narrowed on Rachel. “You told him?”
She stepped back, putting distance between herself and his rage. “Yes, but—”
“Is this what you’ve been doing? All those times you disappeared. You were off fucking this kid?”
Rachel grabbed his arm. “Would you stop and listen to me? We can’t do this here!”
“She’s right,” Joe said. “There’s press hanging around the lobby. One of them could walk through that door any minute.”
“Thirteen years,” Matt muttered as he shook Rachel off. “I gave you everything. I pulled you out of the damn gutter and for what? So you could humiliate me in front of the whole world?” His lips curled into a disgusted sneer. “You were going to take my money. Make me beg you to stay while you were slutting around town with some—”
Nathan’s fist slammed into his jaw and sent him skidding to the ground. The dull thud made Rachel gasp. She stumbled back to avoid being hit by the wild sprawl of Matt’s legs.
Nathan crouched to meet his eyes. “I told you not to talk to her that way.”
Matt stood and shuffled back. “You stupid son of a bitch. I could have you arrested.”
“No.” Rachel stood between them. “Matt, please. Don’t do this. You’re mad at me, not him.”
He shouldered past her. “You can both go to hell.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The fallout started as a slow trickle. Mia called while Rachel was driving home. She’d read about what happened in a PTA group chat, and the story had already changed multiple times. In the latest version, Nathan had punched Matt onstage and damaged an exhibit while Rachel cowered in the corner, sobbing. “I muted that shit,” Mia said. “But I thought you’d want to know what people were saying.”
Walking into an empty house was a relief. Matt was probably already discussing divorce strategies with Herman in some Abbott war room. Rachel closed all the blinds and poured a glass of wine before she looked at her phone again. There were fifteen voicemails. One from Faith that she barely understood because of a bad connection. One from Ben asking if she was okay and another from Julia demanding a call. The rest were from reporters. Her social media apps had so many notifications that they’d defaulted to a plus sign instead of updating the number.
Rachel FaceTimed Faith. It took her daughter longer than normal to answer, and when she did, she looked mussed and bleary, like she’d been startled awake.
“Mom, what the hell?” Faith was on her laptop and held her phone in one hand. “My DMs are blowing up. I think a reporter called me. How did they get my number?”
“Block them. I’ll get your number changed.”
“Just tell me what’s going on. Matt called an hour ago, but I wanted to talk to you first. Did he really cheat on you? Did you both… cheat? Are you getting divorced?”
Rachel heard the lingering hope in Faith’s questions, that somehow a dozen news outlets had gotten the story wrong. It reminded her of Matt’s birthday party, and how she’d clung to her denial despite the clear evidence of his lies on her phone. She took a deep breath and confessed the truth. “We haven’t been happy for a long time. I should have told you what was happening, but I knew it would hurt you.” It was such a weak excuse. Rachel covered her face, giving in to the urge to hide. “I was a coward. You deserved better and I’m so sorry.”
Faith rubbed her eyes until they were red. “I knew something was wrong. I should have said something. I should have—”
“It’s not your job to fix us.” Rachel paused. “Or to fix me. I know you worry about me.”
“Because I love you,” Faith said. “And you’re always beating yourself up for stuff that doesn’t matter. Like folding the napkins wrong or forgetting my shoe size. And I know you still feel guilty, but I barely remember all that stuff with Grandpa. All I know is that you sacrificed everything to take care of me.” Her eyes filled. “But no one takes care of you.”
Rachel thought about Matt’s loneliness and Nathan’s desperate attempts to help her. “It’s because I won’t let them,” she admitted. All these years, she’d been atoning for her sins in full view of her daughter, and that was the real damage she’d caused, making Faith feel helpless in the face of her mother’s misery. “I never believed I deserved it. But I’m working on that. I promise to take better care of myself from now on.”
After they hung up, Rachel slept soundly for the first time in weeks. She woke up the next morning and immediately called Mia, asking if she could use her spare bedroom. Mia agreed, but made it clear that her “guestroom” was a pullout sofa over the garage.