Part 5
Not forever.
Not abandon his career.
Just one more day.
He had told her she always made decisions feel like emergencies.
She had looked at him for a long time.
Then she said, “One day you will understand that people ask twice only when they have already asked themselves a hundred times.”
He had not understood.
He had left the next morning.
“Her name is Nora,” he said.
Celeste’s eyes stayed on his face.
“Yes.”
“She and I knew each other.”
“Knew each other how?”
The question did not sound accusatory.
That was worse.
Mason’s throat tightened.
“We were together.”
Wren’s fingers curled around the rabbit keychain.
Celeste looked away for one brief second, then back.
“How long ago?”
“Seven years.”
Celeste’s lips parted.
Then closed.
Mason knew what she was calculating. Their relationship had begun three years ago. The numbers did not make him unfaithful to her. They did not make the child a betrayal.
But they made the past real in a way it had never been before.
He had told Celeste about Nora once, in the carefully edited way people told old stories when they wanted to show honesty without reopening the wound.
“She was someone I loved when I was younger,” he had said. “It ended badly.”
Celeste had asked whether he still spoke to Nora.
“No.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“Did you ever try to find her?”
Mason had hesitated long enough that Celeste had noticed.
Then he had said, “At first.”
She had not asked anything else.
Now, in the private suite on their wedding day, that silence stood between them like another person.
Celeste looked at Wren.
“Did your mother tell you Mason was your father?”
The child nodded.
“She said he didn’t know.”
Mason shut his eyes.
Celeste’s voice became softer.
“Did she say why he didn’t know?”
Wren looked down at the backpack.
“She said she was scared.”
Mason’s chest tightened.
Of him?
Of what he might say?
Of his family?
Of someone who had found a way to get a child into a locked room on a wedding day?
He looked at the photograph again.
Nora’s hand was resting on Wren’s shoulder.
He had not touched Nora in seven years. He had not heard her voice. He had not known the life she built, the work she did, the places she went, the people who might have threatened her.
And yet Wren had his nose.
The thought came to him ugly and immediate.
It was not proof.
It was not enough.
But it was something his body recognized before his mind had permission to accept it.
Celeste stood near the door, framed by the hallway light.
“What did the woman with white sleeves look like?” she asked Wren.
The girl frowned.
“She had flowers.”
“What kind of flowers?”
“Little white ones.”
Celeste looked down at the flowers woven into the edge of her own gown.
The corridor went quiet.
Wren noticed where Celeste was looking.
“I don’t know if it was you,” she said quickly.
Celeste’s face changed.
The child’s fear had made her sound apologetic.
Mason saw Celeste swallow.
“It wasn’t me,” she said.
“I know,” Wren whispered.
“You don’t have to know,” Celeste said. “You’re allowed to be scared.”
Wren watched her carefully.
Then she looked at Mason.
“Mommy said you would know the difference.”
Mason felt something twist inside him.
He had no idea what Nora had meant by that.
Mrs. Vann returned with a slim tablet in her hands.
“The suite was accessed at six twenty-two,” she said. “The record shows a service keycard.”
“Whose card?” Mason asked.
“The account is listed under the wedding planning office.”
Celeste frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
Mrs. Vann touched the screen.
“The request was authorized from the event account this morning.”
Celeste’s expression went blank for a moment.
“I didn’t authorize a service key.”
“No,” Mrs. Vann said carefully. “But the planner account belongs to you.”
Mason watched Celeste.
Her eyes did not move from the tablet.
The accusation had not been spoken aloud, yet it entered the room anyway.
Wren pressed closer against him.
Celeste looked at Mrs. Vann.
“Can you show me the request?”
The manager hesitated.
Then handed over the tablet.
Celeste read it. Her fingers trembled once, just enough for Mason to notice.
“This is not my writing,” she said.
“Is it your password?” Mrs. Vann asked.
Celeste looked up.
“No.”
“Was anyone else given access?”
“My planner. My assistant. The venue coordinator. Maybe my mother, if she had the login saved somewhere.”
Mason saw her flinch after saying the last words.
“My mother doesn’t know how to use a planning portal,” Celeste added quickly.
No one answered.
May you like
The thought had already entered the room.
Celeste’s mother, Anne Rowan, was standing outside in pale blue. Wren had described white sleeves and flowers, not blue. But people did not need facts to build a story. They only needed the first shape of suspicion.
