My mother put a hand on Courtney’s arm, not to comfort her, but to stop her from speaking. Patricia had always known when a battlefield changed.
“Madeline,” she said, softer now, “may we speak privately?”
“No.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Not everything needs to be handled in public.”
I glanced around the room, then back at her.
“You started in public.”
A man near the bar coughed into his napkin. His wife kicked him under the table.
Courtney leaned forward, lowering her voice, though everyone could still hear her.
“You have no idea what you’re doing. This place is old money. It’s reputation. It’s relationships. You can’t just walk in with some investor group and pretend you belong.”
I closed the folder in front of me.
“Courtney, you just demanded the owner be summoned so I could be thrown out of my own dining room.”
Her lips pressed together.
“You hid behind a shell company.”
“I used an investment group. There’s a difference. One is strategy. The other is what you used to reroute my commissions at Anderson Real Estate.”
My mother’s hand tightened on Courtney’s arm.
There it was.
The first real silence.
Not shock from strangers.
Fear from family.
Courtney’s eyes flicked toward the tables nearest us.