Chương 4
“No,” Elena said.
Adrian turned on her. “You made that impossible.”
“I sent you six dates.”
“You demanded supervision.”
“You had just told me you were moving to Miami.”
“I said I might expand the business there.”
“You changed your number.”
“My phone was stolen.”
“You blocked me.”
“I was advised to create boundaries.”
“By the lawyer whose name you can’t remember?”
Margaret covered her mouth.
Lucia finished the bottle and pushed it away. Elena placed a cloth over her shoulder and held the baby upright. A small burp escaped her. In another room, under any other circumstances, someone might have laughed.
Claire did, once.
It was a strange, broken sound. She pressed her lips together immediately, but Lucia turned toward her.
The baby stared at the white gown.
Claire held out one finger. Lucia wrapped her hand around it.
Adrian took a step forward.
Elena watched Claire’s face tighten.
“Don’t,” Claire said.
He stopped again.
Martin unlocked the library door and spoke to someone outside. Within minutes, Tessa entered carrying Claire’s phone and a pair of flat shoes. She did not look at Adrian.
“The guests are leaving,” she said. “We told them there was a family emergency.”
“They saw the emergency,” Claire replied.
Tessa knelt and began unfastening the delicate straps of Claire’s heels.
“Someone posted a video,” she said quietly.
Martin swore.
“How many people saw it?” Claire asked.
“Enough.”
“Take it down.”
“We’re trying.”
Claire looked at Elena. “Did you bring anyone?”
“No.”
“Did anyone know you were coming?”
“My attorney knew. My neighbor watched Lucia while I got dressed, but I changed my mind and brought her.”
“Why?”
Elena looked at Adrian.
“Because he had spent months pretending she didn’t exist.”
The admission embarrassed her. It sounded theatrical when spoken aloud. Worse, it was true.
She had considered leaving Lucia with Mrs. Alvarez in the apartment downstairs. She had stood in her bedroom wearing the champagne dress she had bought for a company holiday party, looking at the baby asleep beneath a mobile of paper birds.
Then Elena had imagined Adrian telling Claire there was no child, or that the child was not his, or that Elena had invented the pregnancy. He had already erased so much by refusing to look at it.
She had lifted Lucia from the crib.
Now, seeing Claire’s hand trapped gently in the baby’s fist, Elena wondered whether she had used her daughter as evidence.
The thought stayed with her.
Martin asked Tessa to take Claire upstairs. Claire refused until Elena gave her attorney’s name and number.
“Naomi Feld,” Elena said. “She has the original electronic files Adrian sent me and the record searches.”
Claire entered the contact into her phone.
Adrian laughed softly. “You’re taking legal advice from her now?”
Claire looked up. “I am taking a phone number.”
“You don’t know what she wants.”
Elena answered before Claire could. “I wanted her not to marry you.”
“Congratulations.”
The word carried enough bitterness to reveal what he believed had been stolen from him.
Not Claire. Not a marriage. The event.
The victory.
Martin opened the library door. “Adrian, you will leave the estate.”
“I came with Claire.”
“You will leave without her.”
“My belongings are upstairs.”
“They will be sent.”
“You cannot detain my property.”
“I am not detaining anything. I am removing you from my home.”
Adrian looked toward Claire. “Come with me. We can speak privately.”
She had put on the flat shoes. The hem of her gown pooled around them.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
“You are letting a stranger destroy us.”
Claire glanced at Elena. “Your wife isn’t a stranger.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
For a moment, Elena saw the expression he wore when a customer service representative denied him a refund, when a waiter brought the wrong bottle of wine, when Elena asked why their savings account was lower than it had been the month before. It was not rage. Rage would have been simpler.
It was offense at resistance.
He adjusted his tuxedo jacket.
“You’ll regret making decisions like this in public.”
Claire’s face changed. “Was that a threat?”
“No. It was concern.”
Martin stepped between them.
Adrian lifted both hands. “Fine.”
He turned toward Elena. His gaze lowered to Lucia, who had begun chewing Claire’s finger.
“I will be speaking to a custody attorney.”
Elena’s stomach contracted.
He saw it.
The smallest relief appeared in his face.
Then security escorted him out.
The ballroom was almost empty when Elena left the library. White rose petals had fallen near the arch. Half the candles still burned. Staff members moved quietly between the tables, covering trays, collecting purses left behind in the confusion, folding linen napkins that had never been used.
Elena walked down the aisle in the opposite direction with Lucia asleep against her chest.
She had imagined leaving to whispers, perhaps insults. Instead, the few remaining guests avoided her eyes. One older man nodded as though they had concluded a business meeting. A woman near the doors said, “That poor bride,” without lowering her voice.
Elena agreed with her.
Outside, the estate’s front drive curved through dark lawns toward iron gates. Cars waited in a line beneath old trees. Drivers checked their phones. Guests sat in back seats speaking urgently to people who had not been there.
A security guard offered to call Elena a car.
“I have one.”
Her hands began shaking when she reached the parking area.
The document slipped from her fingers.
It landed face down on the pavement.
Elena crouched awkwardly, one arm secure around Lucia, and picked it up. The cream paper had acquired a gray mark near the lower corner. She rubbed at it with her thumb and made it worse.
For six years, she had protected that certificate from water, folds, fingerprints, and sunlight.
Now it looked used.
May you like
She placed it in the diaper bag.
Her car was a nine-year-old gray Honda with a dent above the rear wheel. It sat between a black Bentley and a chauffeured Mercedes. Elena strapped Lucia into the car seat, checked the buckle twice, then stood with one hand on the open door.
