Preston yanked Camille's head down and slammed her face into the cake platter.
The impact was wet and loud. Frosting exploded across the white linen. Camille's forehead hit the porcelain edge of the platter. Her hands shot out, scattering glasses and silverware. A champagne flute shattered on the marble floor.
The ballroom froze. Three hundred people, and not a single sound. The jazz band kept playing for four more bars before the trumpet player looked up and stopped mid-note.
Then silence. Complete silence.
Preston held her head down. His fingers twisted in her braids. Frosting and cream oozed between his knuckles.
"Stay down," he said. His voice was calm now, almost peaceful. "That's where you belong."
Sloan zoomed in. Her finger tapped the screen. "Got it," she whispered.
Victoria hadn't moved. She sat with her champagne glass in one hand, watching her son pin a young woman's face into a cake platter the way one watches a mildly interesting scene in a movie. She took a sip.
"She brought it on herself," Victoria said to no one in particular. "If she had any breeding, she would have left when she was told."
Preston released Camille's hair and stepped back. He wiped his hand on a linen napkin and tossed it on the table. He straightened his jacket, adjusted his cufflinks as if nothing had happened.
Camille didn't move for three seconds. Her face was still pressed against the platter. Cream covered her forehead, her eyelashes, her cheeks. A thin line of red ran from her hairline where the porcelain edge had cut the skin.
Then she pushed herself up. Slowly. Her arms shook. Frosting dripped from her chin onto her black dress. One of her earrings was gone, knocked loose and lying somewhere in the wreckage of dessert and broken glass.
She didn't cry. She didn't scream. She sat up straight, cream still clinging to her eyelashes, and stared directly ahead. Her breathing was ragged. Her hands were fists in her lap, but her eyes were dry.