"You know what would be really fun?" he said.
The table went quiet.
"Preston." It was Thomas Caldwell—the first word he had spoken all evening. His voice was thin, uncertain. "Maybe that's enough."
Preston didn't even glance at him. "Thomas, shut up. Unless you want me to tell everyone about that creative accounting your firm did on the Harbor Ridge project."
Thomas closed his mouth. His wife grabbed his hand under the table. The silence returned, heavier than before.
Preston set the cake platter back down on the table, directly in front of Camille. The frosting glistened under the chandelier light.
"Apologize," he said.
Camille looked at the cake, then up at Preston. "For what?"
"For sitting at this table. For ruining our evening. For existing in a space you were never meant to be in." His voice dropped. "Apologize, and maybe I'll let you walk out of here with some dignity."
Camille's hands were trembling under the table. Her knees pressed together, her throat was dry, but she looked Preston in the eye. "I have nothing to apologize for."
Preston's jaw clenched, his nostrils flared, the vein on the side of his neck pulsed. For a moment, the mask of amusement fell away completely. What was underneath was not anger; it was rage—the kind that comes from a man who has never been told no by someone he considers beneath him.
He grabbed a fistful of Camille's braids.
Eleanor Reeves gasped. Walter grabbed his wife's arm. Sloan leaned forward with her phone.