13. Adrian
Adrian
Seraphina moves into Elena’s dressing room while I am offering my wife twenty-five million dollars to disappear.
I return from the settlement meeting to find three open suitcases on the carpet, garment bags hanging from Elena’s wardrobe doors, and my sister-in-law directing a maid to clear the left side of the shoe wall.
For one second, the sight is so intimate my body refuses to enter the room.
Elena designed this space when we renovated the estate.
Her vanity faces east because she hates applying makeup under artificial light.
The chaise near the windows is where she fastened her shoes before events while I stood behind her, pretending impatience so I could watch the movement of her legs beneath whatever dress she wore.
Her perfume used to linger here long after she left.
Now Seraphina’s luggage lies open across the chaise.
“What are you doing?”
She looks over her shoulder. “The guesthouse closets are tiny.”
“Then use fewer clothes.”
The maid freezes with an armful of Elena’s dresses.
Seraphina waves her toward the hall. “Put those in storage. Elena won’t need them.”
“Leave us,” I tell the maid.
She puts the dresses down and escapes.
Seraphina turns back to the wardrobe as if my presence changes nothing. “You cannot preserve the house exactly as she left it.”
“You have a guesthouse.”
“I have been exiled to a building beside the tennis court while your staff whispers every time I enter the main house.”
“They know what happened.”
“They know Elena’s version.”
My version is worse.
I say nothing.
Seraphina lifts a white silk blouse from one suitcase and hangs it between two of Elena’s evening gowns.
I tell myself cloth is cloth. A closet is wood and brass.
Elena has rejected the estate, the penthouse, the Hamptons house, and enough money to ensure she never has to think about me again.
Keeping her wardrobe untouched will not make her return.
“Use the room if you insist,” I say. “Do not move Elena’s belongings.”
Seraphina smiles as though she has won something.
By morning, she posts a photograph from Elena’s private balcony.
The image shows a silver coffee service, one bare foot on the stone railing, and the eastern lawn blurred behind her. She captions it Quiet mornings at home and allows the location to appear beneath the photograph.
Our house, according to one of her replies.
My communications director calls before eight.
“Do you want us to request removal?”
I look through the library doors toward the balcony above. Seraphina is visible against the railing in Elena’s white robe, holding her phone toward the sunrise.
“No.”
Removing the photograph would suggest I care.
I do not care.
At eleven, the chair of the Vale Foundation forwards an email Seraphina sent asking to attend the next board meeting in Elena’s former capacity. She describes herself as someone with a personal understanding of the family’s philanthropic vision.
“Mrs. Vale built the education initiative,” the chair says carefully. “She personally recruited half this board.”
“Elena remains on the board until she resigns.”
“Your sister-in-law implied that transition was already arranged.”
I close my eyes.
Nothing has been arranged. Seraphina saw Elena’s place empty and assumed vacancy meant invitation.
I find her that evening in Elena’s sitting room with a decorator. Fabric books cover the low table. A photograph of the room’s current pale-blue walls glows on a tablet beside sketches for lacquered black shelves and a mirrored bar.
“Our house has good bones,” Seraphina is saying, “but Elena made everything so safe.”
The decorator sees me first and rises.
Seraphina turns.
Emerald drops swing beneath her ears.
I stop breathing.
I gave those earrings to Elena on our fifth anniversary.
That night, I stood behind her at this same mirror and fastened one because her hands were shaking after a fight with my mother.
She had worn a black dress with a low back.
I kissed the nape of her neck, then followed the line of her spine until she laughed and told me we were already late.
We never reached dinner.
Elena wore the emeralds the next morning over one of my shirts, smiling into her coffee while I apologized for the ruined reservation.
Seraphina tilts her head. “What?”
“Take those off.”
Her fingertips rise to one earring. The gesture is almost Elena’s, but she uses the wrong hand.
“I found them in the jewellery drawer.”
“They belong to Elena.”
“She left them.”
“She left because I betrayed her. That does not make her possessions yours.”
The decorator begins gathering her books.
Seraphina looks toward her. “We are not finished.”
“You are,” I say.
The woman does not wait for clarification.
When the door closes, Seraphina’s composure snaps. “You let me move in here.”
“I let you use a closet.”
“You let me stay. You defended me from the press. You told your family the truth.”
“I told them I knew. That was not a declaration of love.”
Her face pales.
“Then what am I doing here?”
I look around the room Elena created. A room Seraphina is trying to turn into something reflective enough to admire herself from every angle.
“I don’t know.”
She laughs once, without humour. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you chose me.”
“I did not choose you.”
“You kept going.”
The words strike where Elena’s did across the settlement table.
The husband who would have stopped.
Seraphina steps closer. “You can pretend this is about guilt, but you wanted me. You looked at my face and decided I was close enough.”
“Take off the earrings.”
“Why do you care? We are identical.”
Something inside me finally refuses the lie.
“You are nothing alike.”
Silence follows.
It is the first time I have said it aloud.
Seraphina reaches up slowly and removes the emeralds. For a moment they rest in her palm, green stones glowing against skin that looks exactly like Elena’s.
Then she drops them on the table.
“Tell yourself that now,” she says. “You knew it before you touched me again.”
She walks out.
I remain beside Elena’s mirror with the earrings in my hand.
Seraphina is right.