Now she stood in the doorway wearing a simple blue sweater, her expression filled with concern.
"Your shoulder?"
"It's fine."
She approached and sat beside him.
"That's not what I meant."
Daniel looked down.
Rebecca waited.
After a moment, he spoke.
"I keep thinking about what would've happened if I didn't own that yacht."
She said nothing.
"If I were just a mechanic trying to get to work, would anyone have believed me?"
Rebecca reached for his hand.
"Some people would."
"Would the captain have come running?"
"He might have."
"But would those two have apologized?"
Rebecca's silence answered him.
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
"They weren't sorry when I came out of the water. They were laughing."
"I saw the video."
He turned toward her.
"You did?"
She nodded.
"It's everywhere."
Daniel sighed.
"Wonderful."
Rebecca squeezed his hand.
"There's something else."
He looked at her.
"The comments are full of people telling similar stories. Workers being humiliated. People being followed in stores. Employees being threatened for doing their jobs."
Daniel listened.
"One man said a customer threw a drink at him because he wouldn't move another guest's car. A woman said she was accused of stealing equipment from a building where she was the manager."
Rebecca paused.
"People are recognizing something familiar in what happened to you."
Daniel looked toward his father's photograph.
"Then maybe this shouldn't just be about me."
Rebecca smiled faintly.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
The next morning, Victoria Langford woke to the sound of her telephone ringing.
Her personal assistant had called seven times.
Two friends had left urgent messages.
A local television producer had requested an interview.
Her husband's business partner had asked whether the footage circulating online was authentic.
Victoria sat upright in bed.
She had slept poorly.
Blake had assured her the incident would disappear after a few hours.
He had insisted that wealthy people survived worse scandals every day.
But the messages on her phone suggested otherwise.
One of her closest acquaintances had written:
"Victoria, please tell me that isn't you."
Another message was colder.
"I think we should postpone lunch until things settle down."
Victoria opened the video.
She watched herself standing on the dock, pointing toward Daniel.
She heard her own laughter.
Then she saw the captain helping him from the water.
The title beneath the video made her stomach tighten.
She closed it.
A moment later, she opened another.
This one contained a longer recording from a different angle.
She could hear herself telling Daniel to leave.
She could see him trying to move away.
She could see Blake standing beside her.
And then the footage ended just before the shove.
Victoria exhaled.
At least the actual push was not visible in that clip.
She told herself this could be managed.
A carefully written statement would explain everything.
Perhaps she could claim she had feared for her safety.
Perhaps she could say Daniel had behaved aggressively.
Perhaps she could argue that the public was misinterpreting a complicated situation.
She was still considering these possibilities when Richard entered the bedroom.
Her husband was sixty-three, with thinning silver hair and the exhausted expression of a man who had spent too many years trying to protect an unstable business.
He held his phone in one hand.
"Victoria."
She looked up.
"Richard, before you say anything—"
"Did you push a man into the harbor?"
She blinked.
"It wasn't like that."
"Did you?"
She folded her arms.
"He was being difficult."
Richard closed his eyes.
"Good God."
Victoria sat straighter.
"You don't understand. He was dressed like a maintenance worker, and he was trying to get onto an expensive yacht."
Richard stared at her.
"And that gives you the right to push him into the water?"
"He was challenging me."
"Victoria."
His voice had become unusually sharp.
"Please listen carefully."
She looked at him.
"That man is Daniel Carter."
"I know who he is now."
"No, you don't."
Richard sat on the edge of the bed.
"Carter Coastal Holdings is the lead investment partner in the harbor redevelopment project."
Victoria frowned.
"What harbor redevelopment project?"
"The one our company has been trying to join for the past eight months."
Her expression changed.
Richard continued.
"Blake's firm was hoping to receive an introduction through us."
Victoria felt a sudden chill.
"Surely that doesn't mean—"