Chapter 6: The Morning After the Ballroom
She slept in the guest room.
Not the main guest room — the small one at the end of the hall, the one that still had her books from before the wedding stacked in the corner because she had never gotten around to moving them to the study.
She lay on top of the covers in the dark and looked at the ceiling and did not sleep for a long time.
At six in the morning, her phone lit up.
Her father.
She answered.
"Are you all right?"
"I don't know yet," she said.
"That's an honest answer."
"I'm trying to be honest about things." She sat up.
"How long have you been watching them?"
"Since the wedding," he said.
"I had concerns before.
I should have spoken sooner."
"Why didn't you?"
A pause.
"Because you were happy.
Or you seemed happy.
And I didn't want to be the person who took that from you if I was wrong."
"And when you knew you weren't wrong?"
"Six months ago.
When the account appeared."
"You waited six months."
"I was building a complete picture.
I didn't want to hand you half a truth."
She looked at the stack of books in the corner.
A novel she had been reading the week she met Weston.
She hadn't finished it.
"Dad.
Did you arrange to have me at that gala?
Did you engineer the introduction three years ago?"
The pause was longer this time.
"No," he said.
"Weston's family engineered the introduction.
I allowed it to proceed because I wanted to see what they would do."
"You used me as a test."
"I underestimated how far they would take it.
That is my failure.
I am sorry for it."
She did not say it was all right.
It wasn't, entirely.
But she recognized the difference between a father who had made a mistake and a family who had made a plan.
At eight o'clock, she heard Weston in the kitchen below.
The sound of the coffee machine.
The particular way he set his cup down too hard on the marble counter — a habit she had stopped mentioning.
She went downstairs.
He was standing at the window with his coffee, still in last night's shirt, jacket gone, tie gone.
He looked like a man who had also not slept.
"I want to talk," he said.
"I know."
"Not about the account.
About — before the account.
About why I didn't tell you."
"All right."
He turned from the window.
"When I met you, the arrangement was already in place.
My mother had spoken to an intermediary.
I was supposed to — make an impression.
That was the word she used.
Make an impression and let things develop."
"And?"
"And I met you, and you were — you weren't what I expected." He set his cup down.
"You didn't know who your father was.
Or you were pretending not to.
And you were funny, and you argued with me about things no one argues with me about, and I thought—"
"You thought you could have both," Nadia said.
He looked at her.
"You thought you could marry me and love me and also protect your family's money.
You thought those things could coexist."
"Yes," he said quietly.
"And the account?"
"That was Priscilla.
She said it was insurance.
I was — I was tired of fighting her by then.
I signed what she put in front of me."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
"Weston." Nadia sat down at the kitchen table.
"Signing something your sister puts in front of you is still signing it.
Tired or not."
He didn't argue.
"I need to know one more thing," she said.
"The night in the kitchen.
When Priscilla—" She stopped.
"Did you know?"
His jaw tightened.
"She told me she'd spoken to you sharply.
That there'd been an argument."
"She told you she'd spoken to me sharply."
"Yes."
"And you believed that."
"I wanted to believe it."
Nadia looked at her hands on the table.
At the wedding ring on her left hand.
She had not taken it off last night.
She wasn't sure why.
"I need a few days," she said.
"I need to think."
"Of course."
"I'm going to stay at my father's house."
Weston nodded.
He picked up his coffee cup and looked into it.
"Nadia." His voice was low.
"I know I don't have the right to ask you for anything right now.
But whatever happens — I need you to know that the part that was real was real."
She stood up.
She looked at him for a long moment.
"I know," she said.
"That's what makes it hard."
She went upstairs to pack a bag.
She did not see Weston sit down at the table after she left, put his face in his hands, and stay that way for a long time.
May you like
But Priscilla, who had let herself in through the side door and was standing in the hallway, did.
And Priscilla took out her phone.
