Poor Alice. I was experiencing a little of what it was like to live under a microscope like she had, and it wasn’t pleasant. Beside the check-in table—an ornate, gilded Black French antique—sat what I was most excited about: a beautifully constructed eight-foot-tall section of living boxwood hedge that held a single brass bell. When one rang the bell, as Julie did now, a gloved hand appeared with a glass of champagne. But what was woefully missing from the top of the boxwood hedge? The Sitterly Capital logo that was supposed to adorn it, marking my husband’s company as the lead sponsor for this event.

I had a moment, one of those we all do inevitably in our lives, where I had to make a decision: Did I confront the chair of the event, Laura Lucas, or did I keep my mouth shut? There had been times when I had been a mouth-shut kind of gal. And then there were ones like tonight, where I was out for vengeance, for blood, and I wasn’t going to take one more second of this treatment.

Laura was swathed in green silk and lace that really brought out her eyes, a choker of pearls around her neck that I wanted to snatch off and watch them fall, one by one, to the sand. Which I did not, obviously. Instead, I said casually, offhandedly, “Laura, I thought part of the lead sponsor package for this event was signage on the champagne boxwoods. Was I incorrect?”

I could see Laura having her own moment of debate. She cleared her throat, looking embarrassed, and said, “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I didn’t, um, know if…”

“You didn’t know if her husband would like to recoup his twenty-thousand-dollar investment in your event?” Julie asked snappily.

I shot her a look.

“I didn’t know the current status of the company, and to be very frank, I feared that putting out signage might look like a calculated low blow on my behalf.”

Julie rolled her eyes and was about to speak, but I touched her arm, very lightly, and she stood down. Because Laura was right. It would have looked like she was relishing our fall from grace.

I nodded. “I appreciate that, Laura. I’m not sure if you read today’s Sun, but Bill is innocent, and all this is being cleared up as we speak. So, yes, the company is very much going to be back in action.”

The certainty with which I said that shocked even me. And Laura must have bought it because she turned to her friend and said, “Greta, let’s please make sure the Sitterlys’ agreed-upon signage gets hung immediately.”