He opened the leather folder and held it out. "The acquisition paperwork is ready for your signature, sir. Everything's in order. We just need you to sign." Travis Reed didn't take it right away.
He looked at Ethan Whitmore, the open mouth, the drained face, the eyes that had finally, far too late, begun to understand. He looked at Vanessa, who had stopped breathing. He looked at Gerald Pruitt, who was already calculating exactly how much of his life had just come apart and finding the number too large to hold. Then Travis Reed reached out and took the folder.
"Thank you, Daniel," he said to the attorney. "Sorry to drag you down here on a Saturday." He glanced at the cover of the documents, and that ghost of a smile came back just for a moment. "Turns out it couldn't have happened at a better time."
He looked up, found Ethan's eyes across the silent courtyard, and held them. "You said I was too poor to be here," Travis said. Ethan's mouth moved. Nothing came out.
"Say it again," Travis said quietly. "Go ahead. Everybody's listening now." Ethan Whitmore could not say it again. The words that had felt so good in his mouth 10 minutes ago, "You're too poor to be here," had turned to ash.
He stood frozen in the middle of the courtyard, 60 pairs of eyes on him, and for the first time in his adult life, he could not find a single thing to say. His brain, which had always been so quick with an insult or a boast, had simply stopped working. "Cat got your tongue?" Travis asked. There was no cruelty in it.
That was almost the worst part. He said it the way a man talks to a kid who'd been caught lying, disappointed, a little tired, not even angry. "A minute ago, you had plenty to say. You said I never built anything."
"You said I never earned anything. You said I should know my place." He tucked the leather folder under his arm. "Tell me, Ethan, where exactly is my place?"
Ethan's mouth opened, closed. "I'll wait," Travis said. Vanessa recovered first because Vanessa had always been the one who recovered first. She put a hand on her husband's arm and turned on the smile she used for waiters and valets and anyone she decided she needed something from.
"Mr. Reed," she said, and her voice came out sweet as syrup. "This is all just a terrible misunderstanding. We had no idea who you were. If we'd known—"
"If you'd known I owned the place, you'd have been nice to me." Travis nodded slowly. "Yeah, I figured that's how it works in your world." He looked at her with those calm gray eyes.
"That's the whole problem, sweetheart. You only know how to be kind to people you're scared of." Vanessa's smile flickered. "You weren't kind to me 10 minutes ago," Travis went on.
"Because 10 minutes ago you thought I was nobody. And here's the thing about people like you. You'll never understand this, but I'll say it anyway. The way a person treats a nobody is the only honest thing about them."
"Everything else is performance." He glanced at the crowd. "You two have been performing your whole lives. I just happened to be the audience that didn't clap."