Part 6
“You knew about the first.”
“I found it. I was trying to—”
“What?”
Celia stopped.
The burgundy fabric at her shoulder shifted as she took one uneven breath.
“I was trying to make him face what he had done.”
“By putting it where I would find it?”
“Yes.”
Maren stared at her.
Celia’s voice broke. “I thought if you saw it, he would have to explain.”
“You thought I needed another test.”
“No.”
“You thought I needed you to decide when I was ready for the truth.”
Celia looked away.
That was answer enough.
Julian came closer.
His face was drawn now, stripped of whatever confidence he had worn into the house.
“I didn’t know she put it there,” he said.
Maren’s eyes moved to him.
“You knew it existed.”
“Yes.”
“You told him things I told you in private.”
“Yes.”
“You knew there was another draft.”
“Yes.”
He nodded after each word as though punishment could become honesty if he accepted it cleanly enough.
“And you still brought me here,” she said.
“I came because I didn’t want you alone with him.”
“You brought me into his house.”
“It’s your house too.”
She flinched.
Julian saw it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The words came too quickly. Too practiced. Not because he did not mean them, but because he had been rehearsing them in his mind long before she knew there was anything to apologize for.
Maren’s throat tightened.
“You had time to be sorry before tonight.”
“I know.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was afraid you’d leave.”
“I did leave.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you following me?”
His face twisted.
“Because I don’t want you to leave like this.”
The answer might have reached her on another night. In another house. In another version of her life.
But the black floor beneath her feet reflected the pale blur of her dress and the dark shape of Julian behind her, and all she could hear was the sentence written in his own hand.
She does not know I told him.
She thinks selling is the only way to feel free.
She’ll hate me if she finds out.
Maren turned and ran.
Now, on the floor, Gideon’s hand supported the back of her head while the memory came apart inside her.
Celia stood near the lamp, no longer touching the necklace. Her hands hung at her sides. Julian was still crouched a few feet away, his white shirt bright against the black floor.
The double doors stood open.
Warm light spilled toward them.
Gideon’s voice was low beside her ear.
“Can you tell me where it hurts?”
Maren stared past him at the pale edge of the rug.
“My hip.”
“Anything else?”
“My head.”
“Did you hit it?”
“I don’t know.”
Gideon’s fingers moved carefully through her hair, not searching too roughly, not forcing her to look at him. His touch had always been like that when she was sick as a child. Gentle in a way that made the rest of him harder to understand.
She hated that she remembered.
Julian shifted closer.
“I should have caught her.”
Gideon looked up at him then.
It was not a loud look. Gideon rarely needed volume. His eyes alone carried enough command to make a room rearrange itself.
“You were behind her.”
“I know.”
“You followed her.”
“I know.”
“You frightened her.”
Julian’s mouth tightened.
“I didn’t touch her.”
“No,” Gideon said. “You simply gave her another reason to run.”
Celia drew in a sharp breath.
“Maren,” she said softly, “please don’t listen to this like it’s all one thing.”
Maren turned her head a fraction toward her.
“It is one thing.”
“No. It’s not.”
“It is.”
Celia’s expression folded inward.
For years, Celia had been the person who made difficult rooms survivable. She could pour a drink without asking what someone needed. She could redirect Gideon with a glance. She could enter a silence and make it feel less like a punishment.
But there were moments when kindness became another form of avoidance.
Maren had never found the words for that before.
Now they came too easily.
“You watched him do this,” she said.
Celia’s lips parted.
“You watched him decide things for me, and you waited until it was too late to be honest.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Celia looked at Gideon.
Maren followed her gaze.
There it was again. That old movement. That old instinct. Everyone in the room trying to decide which version of Gideon could be spoken aloud without making him impossible to love.
“From him?” Maren asked.
Celia did not answer.
Gideon’s face changed.
Not anger. Something deeper, more private. He looked suddenly older beneath the silver hair and clean lines of his suit.
May you like
“That is enough,” he said.
“No,” Maren whispered. “It isn’t.”
