Chương 4
For twenty minutes, neither woman mentioned the wedding.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room in quick, watery beats. Livia watched the green line travel across the monitor. Every few minutes, a nurse came in, adjusted a strap, and said the tracing looked reassuring.
Naomi folded the empty cracker wrapper into smaller and smaller squares.
“You can say it,” Livia said.
“I’m deciding which thing.”
“That Adrian is a coward.”
“I was going to say his bow tie was crooked.”
“It wasn’t.”
“That’s what makes him worse.”
Livia turned her head toward the window. The glass reflected her face without the softening effect of ballroom light. Her makeup had faded around her eyes. One side of her low bun had loosened. The shoulder strap Eleanor pulled sat higher than the other because Livia had twisted it when she covered herself.
“I asked him yesterday if there was anything else,” she said. “He said no.”
Naomi stopped folding the wrapper.
“He knew Eleanor had prepared the statement. He said he thought it was leverage. He said no one would actually plant evidence.”
“That is not the defense he thinks it is.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Livia looked at her.
Naomi’s expression softened, but she did not apologize. She had spent four years watching Adrian collect admiration for being the calmest person in every room. She had also watched Livia arrange her life around his silences, calling them patience because the alternative required decisions.
The monitor continued its quick rhythm.
“I kept waiting for him to become the person he was when we were alone,” Livia said.
Naomi unfolded the cracker wrapper and smoothed it against her knee. “Maybe he was always the person he was in public.”
The physician on call discharged Livia shortly after midnight with instructions to rest, hydrate, monitor the contractions, and return if they became regular or stronger. Nothing suggested labor. The baby was active. Livia thanked everyone too many times.
Naomi drove her to the apartment she shared with Adrian on West Seventy-Eighth Street.
His key was not in the lock.
That surprised her.
She had expected him to be waiting inside, sitting at the kitchen island with his tuxedo jacket folded over the chair, prepared to explain everything in the orderly sequence he used when presenting risk to a board. Instead, the apartment was dark. A wooden train set Livia’s father had bought for the baby remained half assembled on the dining table. One curved piece of track lay on the floor beside an unopened package of screws.
Naomi switched on a lamp. “Pack a bag.”
“For where?”
“My place.”
“I need my own bed.”
“You need a door he cannot open.”
Livia removed her nude heels and stood barefoot on the rug. Her feet had swollen enough to leave pale bands across the skin. She looked at the framed photograph on the bookshelf: Adrian behind her at the lake, chin resting on her shoulder, both of them squinting into late summer light. They had argued ten minutes before the picture because he had answered a call from Eleanor during lunch. No one seeing the photograph would have known.
“I’m not leaving my apartment.”
“Then change the lock.”
“It’s midnight.”
“People change locks at midnight. That is why locksmiths charge so much.”
Livia almost smiled.
She took a suitcase from the closet and placed it on the bed. Then she stopped.
Packing implied a temporary condition. A weekend. A cooling-off period. It allowed the engagement to remain intact somewhere outside the suitcase.
She returned to the living room, removed the diamond ring from her left hand, and set it on the kitchen counter.
Naomi watched without speaking.
Livia took a photograph of the ring where she had left it. Then she opened the building’s resident app and revoked Adrian’s digital guest access. The lease was in both names, so she could not legally bar him from the apartment, but the small action steadied her.
She sent him one message.
I am home. Naomi is staying. Do not come tonight. I will speak to you with Mara present tomorrow.
He replied immediately.
Are you and the baby safe?
Yes.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, and returned.
I am sorry.
Livia turned off the phone.
In the morning, the wedding existed everywhere.
A guest had recorded the last twenty seconds of the confrontation, beginning with the keys striking the floor and ending after Nathan played the audio. The video had been posted before midnight. It showed Camille holding the open ivory clutch, Eleanor lifting the black access card, Livia bending for her phone, and Adrian lowering his eyes when she asked whether he knew.
The caption read: PREGNANT VIOLINIST EXPOSES BILLIONAIRE BRIDE’S FAMILY AT WEDDING.
The word billionaire was incorrect. The Rowan family’s wealth was substantial, complicated, and heavily leveraged. Accuracy did not improve headlines.
By eight, the clip had been viewed two million times.
By nine, strangers had identified Livia’s orchestra, apartment building, former conservatory, and the prenatal clinic named on the corner of the medical envelope visible in one frozen frame. The clinic called to warn her that reporters had contacted its reception desk. A woman with a cooking account posted a close-up of Livia’s abdomen and speculated about the baby’s due date. Someone else claimed the black card belonged to a private sex club.
Livia sat at the kitchen table in one of Adrian’s old white shirts and watched Naomi spread peanut butter on toast.
“Stop reading,” Naomi said.
“I’m looking for factual errors.”
“You are looking for pain with punctuation.”
The phone rang.
Mara Ellison spoke before Livia could say hello. “Do not answer the door. Do not speak to press. Do not delete anything. Do not send Adrian another message.”
“I only sent one.”
“I know. You copied me.”
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Mara was a media attorney who had once represented the chamber orchestra during a dispute over a donor’s demand to remove a conductor. She was forty-two, direct, and incapable of making sympathy sound sentimental.
“The trust’s outside counsel contacted me at six,” she said. “They claim the recording was selectively edited and that you stole confidential financial information.”
