Chapter 11 #2
A faint chuckle rippled down the table, like she’d just delivered a clever line. Riley couldn’t tell if she was supposed to feel flattered or pitied. She lifted her wine glass and took a careful sip, letting the red coat her tongue.
But Marianne wasn’t finished. “And what’s it like,” she asked, leaning forward slightly, “being… well, not from our world?”
The words dropped like stones in Riley’s stomach. She set her glass down carefully, making sure it didn’t clink against the plate. “I suppose it’s like being from any world,” she said, managing a small smile. “You just learn the customs as you go.”
Beside her, Elizabeth shifted, her voice smooth but edged. “Marianne. Riley’s more than capable of handling herself. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Oh, I’m just curious,” Marianne interrupted, her pearls catching the light as she leaned back. “It must be quite an adjustment, coming into… all this.” She gestured with a sweep of her hand, taking in the chandeliers, the polished silver, the air that smelled faintly of wealth and rosemary.
Heat crept up Riley’s neck. She told herself it was just the wine, just the fire glowing from the hearth, but her pulse quickened. She didn’t dare glance at Elizabeth. She didn’t want to see pity, or worse, agreement.
And then, as if summoned, Elizabeth’s brother spoke up from further down the table. His smile was sharp, deliberate. “It’s certainly a change from Sophia, isn’t it?”
The name landed like a pin in Riley’s chest. She’d heard it before, dropped casually in conversation, always with the same undertone: Sophia, the golden ex. The one who’d ticked every box. Polished. Beautiful. The right family, the right pedigree. Seamless.
Riley’s fork paused halfway to her mouth, suddenly heavy.
She could almost feel the comparison settling over her like a cloak, her messy hair she’d tamed too quickly in the mirror, the dress that belonged to Elizabeth’s stylist’s rack, her hands still a little calloused from years of work that didn’t involve boardrooms or wine cellars.
She wasn’t Sophia. She’d never be Sophia.
“Well,” her brother went on, his tone smug, “Sophia always fit right in here. It was effortless. You two had so much in common.”
The words were meant to sting, and they did. Riley felt them like tiny cuts beneath the skin.
Elizabeth said nothing.
She didn’t defend Riley. Didn’t deflect. Didn’t even change the subject. She kept her gaze lowered to her plate, her grip tight around her fork as though the china pattern suddenly required intense study.
And somehow, that silence hurt worse than anything Marianne or her brother could have said.
Riley’s throat tightened. She wanted to say something, anything sharp enough to cut through the smugness, but the setting pinned her down. This was their arena, not hers. If she snapped back, she’d only become the proof they wanted: the outsider, the stray who didn’t belong.
So she smiled instead, stretching it thin, and let the conversation roll on without her. Voices rose and fell around the table, punctuated by polite laughter and the soft clinking of cutlery. But to Riley, it all blurred into a muffled hum, like she’d slipped underwater.
She pushed the food around her plate, appetite gone.
Across from her, Marianne had launched into a story about last summer in Vienna, weaving in the names of designers and minor royals as though they were old friends.
Riley nodded at the right moments, feigned interest when people looked her way, but her mind wasn’t there.
It was back in the library last night, when Elizabeth’s eyes had softened and the air between them had been warm, private, almost real. Back in that quiet where Riley had let herself believe, just for a second, that maybe she wasn’t entirely pretending.
She wondered if Elizabeth even remembered that feeling now, or if she’d already folded it away, as easily as she folded napkins into perfect triangles.
Riley’s chest tightened. She wasn’t sure what was worse: that the family disrespected her or that Elizabeth didn’t stop them.
And as laughter rose again around the table, Riley pasted her smile back on, her pulse thudding dully in her ears, and told herself to survive the night.
Because that was all this was. Survival.
The door clicked shut behind them, muffling the sounds of the house settling into sleep.
Riley’s shoulders were tight as coiled wire, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. She could still feel the echo of the dining room, the weight of Marianne’s gaze, the offhand cruelty, the way Sophia’s name had landed like a slap across the table.
But more than any of that, she felt Elizabeth’s silence.
Elizabeth moved across the room with her usual precision, each motion deliberate, her heels clicking softly against the hardwood before she slipped them off.
She set her pearl earrings down on the dresser with neat care, as though order could hold the world together.
The sight only sharpened the anger buzzing beneath Riley’s skin.
The necklace clasp clicked open. Riley couldn’t hold it anymore.
“Was this always fake for you?” she asked, her voice cutting through the quiet.
Elizabeth’s hands stilled just a fraction, then continued. “What?”
Riley took a step forward, heat creeping up her throat. “Do you even see me when they talk to me like that? Or do you just… sit there, tuning it out, while they dissect me like I’m—”
“I didn’t ask for that conversation to happen,” Elizabeth interrupted, her tone clipped.
“No,” Riley shot back, sharper now, “but you let it happen.”
Elizabeth turned then, her profile sharp in the lamplight. “And what exactly did you want me to do? Cause a scene? Throw a glass of wine in Marianne’s lap? You know what that would accomplish.”
“I wanted you to have my back,” Riley said, her voice trembling despite her best effort. “Even just a look, Elizabeth. Something to tell me I wasn’t alone in that room. Because right now? It feels like you left me twisting out there.”
Elizabeth’s jaw tightened. “Engaging would have only made it worse. They thrive on spectacle. I wasn’t going to give them ammunition.”
Riley laughed once, bitter and small. “You think your silence didn’t give them exactly what they wanted? They saw me sitting there, heard Sophia’s name, and watched you say nothing. That silence told them everything.”
The words hung heavy between them. Elizabeth didn’t flinch, didn’t soften. Her stillness made Riley’s stomach knot even tighter.
“I thought…” Riley hesitated, her voice dipping low, vulnerable despite the anger burning beneath. “I thought we were becoming something real.”
For a split second, something unguarded flickered across Elizabeth’s face, pain, maybe, or fear. Riley wanted to grab hold of it, to demand the truth. But then Elizabeth straightened, folding her arms like armor.
“You knew what this was,” she said flatly.
The words landed like a blade, clean and merciless.
Riley stared at her, her chest tight. “Right. A performance.” She tried to keep her tone even, but it came out rough.
Elizabeth’s eyes flickered, but she said nothing.
Riley wanted to scream. To shake her. To demand that Elizabeth admit she’d meant the gifts, the kiss, the smile no one else had seen. The sex. But the silence stretched, suffocating, until Riley couldn’t breathe.
She turned away, moving toward the bed, if only to have something to do with her hands. Her pulse roared in her ears as she pulled back the covers. The mattress looked impossibly wide and impossibly small at once, room enough for two bodies, but nowhere to hide.
“You’re really going to sleep after that?” Elizabeth asked, her voice taut.
Riley slid under the covers, her back to the room. “What else do you want me to do? Keep performing for you?”
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She moved around the room in silence, removing her necklace, slipping out of her dress with quiet efficiency, folding it neatly before hanging it over the valet stand. Each sound, the whisper of fabric, the creak of the wardrobe, only made Riley’s skin prickle more.
The bed dipped a moment later as Elizabeth slid in on the other side. The air shifted with her warmth, and Riley felt her entire body tense, every nerve ending alert. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to sleep, but the space between them was alive with all the words unsaid.
Minutes stretched, long and heavy. Riley stared into the dark, watching the faint silver glow of the moon filter through the curtains. She could feel Elizabeth’s breathing, measured, controlled, infuriatingly calm, like a counterpoint to her own uneven rhythm.
She wanted to roll over. To bridge the space. To demand Elizabeth take back what she’d said. But pride and hurt kept her spine rigid.
Finally, Elizabeth’s voice came low, almost a whisper. “It wasn’t about you.”
Riley’s chest squeezed. She bit her lip hard before answering. “That’s the problem. It never is, is it?”
The silence that followed was colder than the winter air pressing against the windows.
Riley tucked her hands under the pillow, grounding herself in the cool linen, trying to steady the thrum of her pulse.
She told herself she could survive this night, this bed, this impossible woman beside her.
But when Elizabeth shifted slightly, the mattress moving beneath Riley’s body, her heart stuttered anyway.
Sleep didn’t come.
All Riley could think, over and over, was that she’d been a fool to believe any of it was real.
And yet, her chest ached with the truth she couldn’t silence—she wanted it to be.