Celeste’s fingers tightened on his sleeve.

“The governor is arriving in ten minutes.”

“Then greet him without us.”

The words were quiet, but they landed hard.

The people close enough to hear them suddenly found their champagne very interesting.

Celeste leaned toward him.

Her voice stayed sweet, but her eyes were knives.

“Do not embarrass me tonight.”

Julian looked at her for a long moment.

“You are doing that yourself.”

He led me toward the side staircase that rose behind the music gallery.

I felt Celeste’s stare between my shoulder blades the entire way.

Upstairs, in the small sitting room near the guest suites, Julian helped me onto a velvet sofa and knelt before me.

“Stay here,” he said.

“I will call the clinic from the hall.

The signal is awful in this room.”

I caught his hand.

“Do not let her come in.”

Something flickered across his face.

Fear.

Not for himself.

“I won’t be long.”

He kissed my forehead and stepped into the hall, phone to his ear.

I sat alone with rain tapping against the windows and the muffled sound of music floating up from below.

The baby shifted beneath my palm.

I whispered to her because that had become my private habit.

“We are almost done with this place,” I said.

“Your father promised.”

A contraction gripped me so sharply I bent forward.

When I lifted my head, Celeste was standing in the doorway.

She had not made a sound.

“Talking to yourself now?” she asked.

I pushed myself upright.

“Where is Julian?”

“Still on the phone.

Making yet another dramatic decision that will cost this family millions.”

“I need to go to the hospital.”

Celeste stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

The click of the latch was soft.

Final.

“No,” she said.

“You need to stop confusing discomfort with importance.”

I stared at her.

“This is not discomfort.”

“Everything with you is a crisis.

The apartment was too small.

The photographers were too intrusive.

The family dinners were too cold.

Now the gala is too difficult.” She moved closer, her perfume sharp and expensive.

“You have made weakness into a talent.”

I stood, one hand braced on the sofa.

“Move away from the door.”

For the first time that evening, her performance fell away completely.

The woman who remained was older, harder, and tired of pretending.

“You should have taken the first check I offered you.”

I remembered the check.

Three months after the wedding, Celeste had invited me to tea in the sunroom and slid a cream envelope across the table.

Inside was enough money to buy silence, distance, and disappearance.

She told me Julian would recover from me quickly if I loved him enough to leave.

I tore it in half.

She never forgave me for not knowing my price.

“I love him,” I said.

“You love what he could become attached to you.” Her gaze dropped to my stomach.

“And now you have made the attachment permanent.”

The baby moved again, and I placed both hands over her.

Celeste noticed.

A cold smile touched her mouth.

“Still protecting what should never have existed.”

I felt the first real spark of fear then, bright and animal.

“Julian!” I called.

Celeste crossed the space between us and grabbed my arm.