Chapter 8 - Rosa Had Been Waiting In The Exact Right Place
Rosa sat down hard on the edge of her flower-cart frame because her knees suddenly felt unsteady.
Camille saw it and, despite everything, stepped toward her.
“Are you okay?”
Rosa nodded once, eyes still on Pierce.
“I took this sidewalk contract back myself after Ellen died,” she said. “Everyone told me I was crazy. The hotel offered to move me inside, give me better hours, let someone else handle curbside sales. I said no.”
Mr. Keane understood before Camille did.
“You stayed because you thought he’d come back.”
Rosa looked up at him.
“Not because he loved flowers,” she said. “Because men like him return to places where their lies almost worked.”
Camille’s lips parted.
Rosa continued, quieter now.
“Ellen told me one thing the night before she died. She said, ‘Mom, if a man ever orders too many roses for a private dinner, don’t trust the dinner. Watch the man.’”
Camille closed her eyes briefly.
“Thirty arrangements,” she whispered.
Rosa nodded.
“I knew the second his order came through this morning.”
Pierce looked suddenly less like a cornered predator and more like a man realizing the trap had been waiting for him, not the other way around.
Camille turned toward him. “So what was tonight?”
He said nothing.
Mr. Keane answered.
“An engagement dinner, most likely. Then signatures. Then a sympathetic explanation for anyone who asked questions later.”
Pierce snapped, “You don’t know that.”
Rosa looked at Camille.
“Did he ask you to keep the dinner small? Private? Family-level only?”
Camille’s face fell.
“Yes.”
“Did he say the papers were too sensitive for corporate people?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you flowers made you feel safe because your mother loved them too?”
Camille stared at Rosa like she had been struck.
“He said that yesterday.”
Rosa did not smile.
“He said the same thing to Ellen about me.”
Mr. Keane turned slowly toward Pierce.
“Every move rehearsed.”
Camille took one step back from him, then another.
“Was any of it real?” she asked.
For one second Pierce looked almost offended.
And that was when Rosa understood something her daughter had probably learned too late.
He wasn’t good at lying because he had no feelings.
He was good at it because he thought other people’s feelings existed to be used.
Before anyone could say more, hotel security spoke into a shoulder radio.
Then he looked up.
“Ms. Camille,” he said carefully, “corporate counsel is on the way down.”
Pierce’s fear deepened.
Because now this was no longer a sidewalk dispute.
May you like
It was becoming an official record.
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