I was still hearing Rory's voice, because someone should, when Clarissa called my name across the terrace.
Clarissa: Maris. Wait. You're still wearing them.
I turned. The Kincaid pearls sat at my throat, warm from my own skin, and her eyes went straight to them.
Clarissa: Those go back in the safe tonight. I'm taking them with me.
I had worn them for three years. Alistair fastened them on me the first Christmas and never once asked for them back.
Maris: Alistair gave them to me.
Clarissa: He lends things. He's careless with what isn't his.
He came down the steps with his jacket open and his hand already out.
Alistair: Take them off.
Maris: What?
Alistair: You heard me. Give them to Clarissa.
He said it the way he asked me to move a chair out of his way.
Maris: You gave them to me in front of your mother. Everyone saw.
Alistair: For fuck's sake. They're Kincaid property. Don't make a scene in the drive.
My fingers found the clasp behind my neck and would not work. They fumbled like a stranger's hands.
Clarissa: Here. Let me.
The pearls slid off my throat into her palm, and she did not look at me once.
Clarissa: Thank you, Maris. That was graceful.
Then Alistair took her face in both hands and kissed her.
Not a quick one. A long one, with his thumb moving at her hip.
Her hand came up to his jaw. I heard the small wet sound of their mouths, and my ears went hot.
I did not look away. I still don't know why I didn't look away.
Clarissa broke off first, laughing, her lipstick pushed off center.
Clarissa: Your fiancée is watching.
Alistair: She's fine.
He said it with his eyes still shut, and the pearls in her hand caught the sun.
She's fine. Three years of my life, folded into two words.
I walked to the car because my legs did it without asking me.
The seat was hot through my skirt. I sat with my hands on the wheel and did not turn the key.
The shame was worse than the anger. Three years, and I had called that man my home.
I called Jules. She picked up on the second ring, with a kettle boiling somewhere behind her.
Jules: Maris? You sound strange. What happened?
Maris: He made me give the pearls back. In front of her. And then he kissed her.
My voice came out flat and thin, like I was reading someone else's news.
Jules: Say that again. Slower.
Maris: He kissed her, Jules. Right there. And I stood on the gravel and let it happen.
Jules: Okay. Listen to me. Stay in that car and do not go back inside that house.
Jules: She didn't ask you for those pearls. He did. That's the part you need to hear.
She did not tell me I was imagining it. She did not say he didn't mean it, or that Clarissa was nothing.
She was the only person all day who took my hurt like it was real.
Maris: I keep thinking if I had been better at the lunch, or funnier, or quieter...
Jules: Don't. Don't you dare finish that sentence.
In the mirror, the house sat behind me, all stone and open windows and other people's money.
I knew the word for what he had done to me. I could feel it sitting behind my teeth.
I did not say it out loud. Not yet.