Chương 3
Behind her, Vanessa said, “Elena.”
She paused.
“I’m sorry it happened like this.”
Elena looked over her shoulder.
“Are you?”
Vanessa took the question without flinching.
“No,” she said after a moment. “I’m sorry about what it did to you.”
That answer was ugly enough to sound true.
Elena left the terrace.
The Mediterranean-style house had been designed to make people feel they had wandered into a richer century. Limestone floors. Arched halls. hand-painted tiles. Bowls of lemons no one ate.
Now staff members stood against walls trying to become invisible.
A young server stepped aside too quickly and nearly dropped a tray.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
Elena almost apologized back.
Instead she kept walking.
Her maid of honor, Priya Desai, caught up near the library.
“Elena.”
“I need my phone.”
“I have it.”
“Of course you do.”
Priya reached into the satin bag she had been carrying all afternoon.
Elena took the phone.
There were forty-seven notifications.
Then fifty.
She turned it facedown.
“Can we leave through the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s my bag?”
“In the bridal room.”
“Get it.”
Priya hesitated.
“What?”
“You’re barefoot.”
Elena looked down.
One emerald heel remained on her right foot.
The left was gone.
She stared at it.
Priya began to laugh.
It was a terrible time to laugh.
That made Elena laugh too.
One short, broken sound.
Then another.
Priya covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. I—where the hell is my shoe?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena leaned against the wall.
The laughter stopped as quickly as it had begun.
Her lungs hurt.
Priya touched her arm.
“Do you want me to get Adrian?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Do not let him near me.”
“Okay.”
“And if Victor comes—”
“I’ll bite him.”
Elena looked at her.
Priya shrugged.
“I’m five-two. I need a strategy.”
For half a second, Elena felt like herself.
Then footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Adrian appeared alone.
Priya moved in front of Elena.
He stopped several feet away.
His cheek was red.
Elena hated seeing the mark.
She hated herself for noticing.
“I need two minutes,” he said.
“You had five months.”
“I know.”
“Then you’ve used them.”
“Elena, please.”
Priya looked back.
Elena gave a small shake of her head.
Priya remained where she was.
Adrian rubbed his thumb against his empty ring finger.
“I did not sleep with Vanessa.”
“I believe you.”
He looked almost relieved.
Elena wanted to slap him again for that.
She would not.
“One physical assault is enough for my wedding day,” she said.
His mouth tightened.
“I deserved that.”
“No. Don’t.”
He frowned.
“Don’t make it noble. I hit you because I lost control. I shouldn’t have.”
“Elena—”
“But I am not apologizing to you right now.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
She stared at him.
“I’m going to ask you questions. You are going to answer them without checking what your father wants you to say.”
“I will.”
“When did you learn Vanessa was pregnant?”
“April.”
“From her?”
“Yes.”
“Why did she tell you?”
Adrian looked toward the far end of the hall.
“Because my father wouldn’t call her back.”
Elena waited.
“She came to my office.”
“Did you know they were sleeping together?”
“No.”
“Did you know they had ever slept together?”
“No.”
That answer came quickly.
She believed it.
“Had you been with her?”
Adrian exhaled.
“Years ago.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“For how long?”
“Six months. Maybe seven.”
Elena looked at Priya.
Priya’s expression changed.
Elena faced him again.
“You told me you had dinner with her twice.”
“I told you we went out.”
“You told me she was someone you dated casually.”
“It was casual.”
“Six months is not two dinners.”
“No.”
“Was your father involved with her while you were?”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think.”
“No. I asked her. She said no.”
“What happened in April?”
“She showed me the pregnancy test. Said she was almost twelve weeks. She told me the baby was Dad’s.”
“And you believed her.”
“Not immediately.”
“What did you do?”
“I confronted him.”
“And?”
“He denied it.”
“Then why is his signature on a paternity test?”
“Because he stopped denying it.”
The answer hung between them.
Priya muttered, “Jesus.”
Adrian glanced at her.
She stared back until he looked away.
Elena said, “Keep going.”
“He said the relationship had been over before he knew she was pregnant.”
“Relationship.”
Adrian looked tired.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He said it didn’t matter.”
Elena looked toward the garden doors.
Victor’s voice was faint in the distance, clipped and authoritative again.
People moving.
Damage being managed.
“Of course he did.”
Adrian stepped closer.
Priya shifted.
He stopped.
“Elena, I was going to tell you.”
She closed her eyes.
There it was.
The sentence people used when time had already proven the opposite.
“When?”
“After the wedding.”
Priya made a disgusted noise.
Adrian ignored her.
Elena opened her eyes.
“You were going to tell me after I legally married you.”
“Yes.”
“On the honeymoon?”
“No.”
“In the car?”
“I don’t know.”
“You had a schedule for flowers, photographs, first dances, speeches, fireworks, breakfast tomorrow, a flight at eleven forty-five, and seven nights in Italy, but the fact that your father secretly impregnated a woman you used to date had no slot.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
“When you say it like that—”
“How else is there to say it?”
He had no answer.
Elena looked at Priya.
“Bag.”
“I’ll get it.”
Priya walked away reluctantly.
When she was gone, Adrian lowered his voice.
“My father asked me for time.”
Elena said nothing.
“He said Vanessa was threatening to go public before he had a chance to tell the board and the family.”
“Which family?”
“Everyone.”
“I was everyone.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now.”
He looked down.
Elena watched his fingers flex.
She had loved those hands.
May you like
That was an absurd thought, but grief was apparently not dignified.
She knew the faint scar across his left thumb from opening an oyster when he was twenty-two. She knew he used too much soap when washing dishes. She knew he rubbed the side of his index finger when he had a migraine.
