Part 6
Callum had attended the memorial.
He had stood beside Evelyn while she cried behind the stage curtain.
He had told her her father would be proud of her.
Now he wanted to turn the same spaces into a private club.
Evelyn’s fingers closed around the phone.
“You were going to erase him from his own theater.”
Callum looked at her.
“That is melodramatic.”
The word made Sabine flinch.
Evelyn did not.
“No,” she said. “It is accurate.”
Callum stepped closer.
The champagne flute was still on the marble table. He did not pick it up. His hands were empty now, and Evelyn noticed that he seemed less sure what to do with them.
“Your mother gave you this theater,” he said. “She gave you the trust. She gave you the ability to call every difficult decision a principle. You do not understand what it takes to make a place like this survive.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“My mother did not give me the theater. She gave me work.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is the difference between us.”
His eyes narrowed.
For a second, she thought he might say something cruel enough to end everything cleanly.
Instead, he looked at the phone again.
“Is she still there?” he asked.
Evelyn did not answer.
He swallowed.
“Mom?”
The word came out before he could stop it.
The line remained silent.
Callum’s face changed.
Evelyn had never seen him afraid of anything that did not have a financial cost. He could endure criticism. He could smooth over angry investors. He could walk into a room full of people who doubted him and leave with half of them convinced he had been misunderstood.
But Margaret Ashford’s disapproval was different.
Evelyn knew that much.
Margaret had raised Callum after his father died. She had pushed him through business school, handed him increasingly important positions, defended him in rooms where other executives rolled their eyes at his confidence. She had also taught him that the family name was a door that could close from the inside.
He had spent his adult life acting as though the door could never close on him.
Evelyn suspected that was because he had never believed it would.
Sabine looked at the phone.
“You called his mother before you came in?”
“No.”
“Then how is she listening?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“Because I learned something useful from Callum.”
His face tightened.
“What?”
“Never walk into a private room without knowing what you are willing to lose.”
Callum stared at her.
She had learned that from him, though not in the way he meant.
Three weeks earlier, he had said it while discussing a negotiation with a developer. He was explaining why he never entered meetings without an exit strategy. Evelyn had been sitting beside him on their apartment sofa, listening while he talked about land options and debt covenants.
At the time, she thought he was teaching her something about business.
Now she realized he had been describing himself.
She had not come to the salon looking for a confrontation. She had come because his mother had called her at six fifteen and asked, in the restrained voice she used when something mattered, whether Callum was with her.
Evelyn said he was supposed to be.
Margaret was quiet.
Then she said, “He is not downstairs.”
Evelyn looked at herself in the mirror. At the veil. At the pearls. At the gown that had taken eight fittings to become something she could breathe in.
“Where is he?” Evelyn asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Margaret did not sound alarmed.
That was what made Evelyn alarmed.
She went looking.
The salon door was not locked. The orchids and candles had been arranged. The room was supposed to be empty.
Then she saw the jacket.
Margaret was still on the call when Evelyn stepped in.
She had not planned to put Callum’s mother on speaker. She had not planned anything beyond finding him and getting him to the ceremony. But when she saw the lipstick mark, Sabine on the daybed, and Callum standing there with a champagne flute, something in her changed.
She pressed one button on the phone.
The call stayed open.
That was all.
Now Callum stood before her with no one to charm.
“You were listening the whole time,” he said.
Evelyn held his gaze.
“Yes.”
His face tightened.
“That is disgusting.”
Evelyn almost smiled.
“You brought another woman into my bridal salon.”
“That is different.”
“Why?”
He did not answer.
Sabine did.
“Because he expected you to be ashamed.”
The words came out flat.
Callum turned toward her.
“Do not do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you care about her.”
May you like
Sabine stood from the daybed.
The emerald satin dress fell straight around her. She was not tall, but she carried herself with the ease of someone used to being watched. For the first time since Evelyn entered, she looked unsettled.
