18. Adrian #2
“That woman,” I say, loud enough to carry to every corner of the ballroom, “is a liar.”
Vivienne’s face goes white. Then red. Then white again.
“The story you’ve heard about my wife is a lie.
Every word of it. The insinuations. The gossip.
The ‘interesting developments.’” I look at Vivienne directly, holding her gaze until she looks away.
“All of it came from her. From a woman who has wanted me since we were teenagers and has spent years trying to destroy the marriage she couldn’t prevent. ”
“Adrian-” Vivienne starts, her voice high and strangled.
“I’m not finished.” I take Nina’s hand, feel her cold, wet fingers tighten around mine.
“The man my wife has been spending time with is her oldest friend. He’s also dying of cancer.
And for months, my wife has been quietly paying for his treatment herself - because his insurance lapsed, and he had no one else. ”
A murmur ripples through the crowd. I see heads turning, see the story restructuring itself in real time.
“At a cancer charity gala,” I continue, letting the irony drip from every word, “my wife just had champagne thrown in her face by a woman who claims to care about cancer patients. The woman who chairs this foundation. The woman who just gave a speech about the importance of supporting those affected by this disease.” I gesture at Cole, who is standing very still, his face gray but his spine straight.
“That man is a cancer patient. And Vivienne Lockhart just used his illness as a weapon against the woman who’s been keeping him alive. ”
The silence that follows is different from before. Heavier. Charged with the particular energy of a crowd realizing they’ve been complicit in something ugly.
I turn to Nina. She’s looking at me with an expression I can’t name - surprise, gratitude, something deeper that makes my chest ache.
“May I have this dance?”
She stares at me. Wet dress. Ruined hair. A whole ballroom watching.
“There’s no music,” she whispers.
“I don’t care.”
A beat. Then she nods.
I pull her into my arms, and we begin to dance.
***
The music starts halfway through.
Someone - the bandleader, maybe, or a sympathetic guest with connections - signals the orchestra, and a waltz begins. Soft at first, then swelling to fill the ballroom.
But I barely hear it. All I can feel is Nina.
Her wet gown under my hand, the silk clinging to her back, cold and damp through my fingers. The warmth of her body underneath, the heat of her skin bleeding through the soaked fabric. The way she trembles slightly - from cold or emotion, I can’t tell.
Every eye on us. The whole place watching. And my body doesn’t care.
This is the worst possible place, I think, even as my hand spreads wider on her back. The worst possible time. Everyone is watching.
But she’s pressed against me, closer than she’s been in months, and I can feel every curve of her body through that ruined dress. The swell of her hips. The softness of her breasts against my chest. The small, secret bump of our daughter between us.
“Adrian.” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“I know.”
“Everyone’s watching.”
“I know.”
“We shouldn’t-”
“I know.” My hand slides lower, finds the dip of her waist, the place where her body curves inward. “I don’t care.”
Her breath catches. I feel it - the small hitch in her chest, the way her fingers tighten on my shoulder. She’s feeling it too, this impossible heat between us, this tension that has nowhere to go in a room full of people.
“Your mother is watching,” she murmurs.
“Let her watch.”
“Vivienne-”
“Can go to hell.”
A laugh escapes her - small, surprised, almost a sob. “That was very dramatic. The speech.”
“It was true.”
“I know. I just-” She draws back to search my face, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I should have done it months ago.”
“You’re doing it now.” Her hand slides from my shoulder to the back of my neck, her fingers threading into my hair. “That’s what matters.”
We’re not really dancing anymore. We’re just holding each other, swaying slightly, two people in the middle of a crowded room pretending they’re alone.
Her cheek finds the place on my shoulder it always lived. Her body settles against mine. And for one perfect moment, we’re just two people who love each other, dancing while the world burns around them.
Then the glass shatters.
***
The sound cuts through the music like a gunshot.
I turn, Nina still in my arms, just in time to see Cole crumple in the middle of the ballroom. His champagne flute - water, not champagne - breaks on the marble floor, crystal scattering across the polished stone.
His face is gray. His hands are shaking. His legs have simply... stopped working.
“Cole!” Nina tears out of my arms, pushing through the crowd, dropping to her knees beside him.
Everything happens at once.
Security rushes forward, black suits cutting through the crowd like sharks. Someone screams - a high, thin sound that echoes off the crystal chandeliers. The orchestra stops mid-note, the sudden silence almost worse than the noise.
“Call an ambulance!” someone shouts. “He’s not breathing right!”
I’m moving, pushing through bodies, trying to get to Nina. She’s cradling Cole’s head in her lap, her ruined dress pooling around them both, her hands pressing against his face like she can hold him together through sheer will.
“Stay with me,” she’s saying, over and over. “Cole, stay with me. You don’t get to die at Vivienne’s fucking party, do you hear me?”
He laughs - a weak, terrible sound. “That would be... ironic.”
“Don’t talk. Save your energy.”
“Nina-”
“I said don’t talk.” She looks up, finds me in the crowd. “Adrian, where’s the ambulance?”
“On its way.” I kneel beside them, put my hand on her shoulder. “Three minutes.”
“He doesn’t have three minutes.”
“Yes, he does.” I take Cole’s hand, feel the racing pulse, the cold sweat. “Hey. Look at me.”
Cole’s eyes find mine, glassy but focused.
“You’re not dying tonight,” I tell him. “You hear me? You’ve got too much unfinished business. Nina will never forgive you if you die on a ballroom floor.”
“She’d forgive me... eventually.”
“No, she wouldn’t. She’d be furious forever. She’d put it on your headstone. ‘Here lies Cole Reeves. He died at a party and Nina’s still mad about it.’”
Cole laughs again - stronger this time. “That’s... actually pretty good.”
“I have my moments.”
The crowd has parted around us, forming a wide circle of horrified faces and expensive gowns. I can see my mother at the edge, her face pale, her hand pressed to her mouth. I can see the Ashfords, the Pembertons, the Hendersons - all of Newport’s finest, watching a man die in front of them.
And I can see Vivienne.
She’s standing exactly where she was when she threw the champagne, frozen in place like someone’s pressed pause. Her face is blank with shock. Her hand is still extended, still holding the empty glass.
At her own cancer charity gala, in front of everyone she’s spent years impressing, her carefully constructed world is falling apart.
The champagne is still wet on Nina’s dress.
Cole’s hand is still in mine.
And the ambulance sirens are finally, finally getting closer.
***
The paramedics arrive in a blur of efficiency.
They load Cole onto a stretcher, check his vitals, start an IV before they’re even out the door. Nina tries to go with them, but they need room to work, need space to save his life.
“I’ll follow in the car,” I tell her. “Go. Be with him.”
She looks at me - wet dress, wild eyes, mascara running down her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she says again.
“Stop thanking me and go.”
She goes. The ambulance doors close. The sirens wail into the night.
And I turn to face the wreckage of Vivienne Lockhart’s perfect evening.
The ballroom is silent. No one has moved. Everyone is staring at the champagne glass still in Vivienne’s hand, at the empty stretcher tracks on the marble floor, at the broken crystal that no one has swept up.
At me.
I straighten my jacket. Brush off my sleeves.
“If anyone would like to make a donation to cancer research,” I say, “I hear the Moretti Foundation is accepting contributions.”
Then I walk out, leaving Vivienne standing alone in the ruins of her own stage.