7. Erika
— ? —
Erika
The glam team arrives at noon, and for the next six hours I’m not a person so much as a canvas, painted and polished and perfected until I barely recognize myself in the mirror.
Hair first, pinned and sprayed and curled until it gleams like a magazine spread, cascading over my shoulders in waves that look effortless but took three people and forty-five minutes to achieve.
Then makeup, subtle but camera-ready, cheekbones highlighted with a shimmer, lips a nude pink that manages to be both understated and unforgettable.
And finally the dress, the champagne silk that caught the light when I tried it on two weeks ago, sliding over my body like water and transforming me into someone who belongs on a red carpet instead of behind a desk.
I stand in front of my closet mirror, and the woman there looks like someone who matters.
Tonight is mine, I think, and the thought feels foreign, almost dangerous, because tonight, for the first time in years, the night is about me, not about Kai’s company or Kai’s legacy or Kai’s endless parade of meetings and obligations. My words, my work, my moment.
I text Kai at four o’clock: Getting ready. You’re still coming, right?
No response.
I tell myself he’s busy, that he’s probably in a meeting and didn’t hear his phone, that he already has his outfit laid out and is just as excited about tonight as I am.
At five, I take a photo of myself in the mirror, gown and heels and the diamonds he bought me for our third anniversary catching the light, and I look like someone worth noticing, someone worth showing up for.
See you there. 7 p.m. Don’t be late.
Nothing.
At six-thirty, in the back of the car he hired for me, because that’s what you do when you’re married to a billionaire, you get driven places by strangers in black suits, I call him, and it goes to voicemail.
“Hi, you’ve reached Kai Channing. Leave a message.”
“Hey.” I keep my voice light, like I’m not sitting in the back of a town car with my heart climbing into my throat. “Just checking you got my texts. I’m on my way to the venue. Table twelve. I saved you a seat.” I pause, swallow. “Love you.”
I hang up and stare at my phone, willing it to buzz, willing his name to appear with some perfectly reasonable explanation for why he’s been radio silent for three hours, and there’s nothing.
He’ll be there, I tell myself. He looked me in the eyes two weeks ago and promised he wouldn’t miss this, and Kai keeps his promises, except for all the times he hasn’t, all the dinners and ordinary Tuesday nights when he promised to be home and wasn’t.
But this is different. He knows how much this matters. He’ll be there.
The venue is a boutique hotel ballroom, elegant but intimate, a room that whispers good taste without screaming money.
Crystal chandeliers cast warm light over round tables dressed in white linen, and there’s a small stage at the front with a podium and a microphone and a banner that reads INDIE VOICE PUBLISHING AWARDS in tasteful gold lettering.
This is my world, I realize as I step through the doors, the one I’ve been building in secret for years, and these are my people, writers and editors and agents who understand what it means to pour your heart onto a page and send it out into the world hoping someone will care, and tonight they’re welcoming me home.
The reserved seat next to mine has a card on it, white with gold lettering: KAI CHANNING.
I sit down and adjust my napkin and smile at my tablemates, a debut novelist with purple hair and an infectious laugh, an editor from a small romance press who tells me she cried reading my submission, and a woman who runs a book blog with half a million followers and wants to interview me after the ceremony.
“Is your husband coming?” the blogger asks, glancing at the empty chair. “Someone at the bar said you’re married to the Kai Channing. Must be wild, being married to a billionaire.”
“He’s on his way.” I check my phone under the table, angling it away so no one can see the screen, and there are no new messages. “Running a little late.”
At seven o’clock the salads arrive, delicate arrangements of greens and edible flowers that I push around my plate without eating.
At seven-fifteen the speeches begin, a parade of publishing people thanking sponsors and congratulating nominees.
At seven-thirty the first award is announced, some category I’m not in, and the winner walks to the stage crying happy tears while the room applauds and I stare at the empty chair beside me and will it to be filled.
I text again: Where are you?
I call again: voicemail.
Panic is starting to claw at my chest now, cold fingers wrapping around my heart and squeezing.
Maybe there’s traffic, maybe his phone died, maybe there was a real emergency at work this time, one he couldn’t get out of no matter how hard he tried.
Or maybe he got caught up in a thing more important than me and lost track of time the way he always does, and right now he’s sitting in some restaurant completely oblivious to the fact that his wife is alone at a table for two with an empty chair and a breaking heart.
I can’t think like that. But I need to know where he is and why he’s not here and if he’s coming at all.
I call Albie.
Kai’s driver has been with him since before I entered the picture, a steady presence in the chaos of his life, and if anyone knows where Kai is at any given moment, it’s Albie. The phone rings twice.
“Mrs. Channing.” His voice is careful and guarded, the voice of someone who knows a thing they don’t want to say. “What can I do for you?”
“Albie, do you know where Kai is? He was supposed to meet me at an event, and he’s not answering his phone.”
There’s a silence, the silence that says everything.
“Albie.”
“He’s at a restaurant, ma’am.” A long pause, heavy with reluctance. “Maestro’s.”
My blood goes cold. I know Maestro’s, dark corners and private booths and prices that require a second mortgage, the restaurant people book when they don’t want to be interrupted.
“Is he alone?”
Another pause, longer this time.
“Is he with Isabella?”
Albie doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t need to, because the silence is answer enough.
My chest goes hollow, like someone reached inside and scooped out everything that mattered, and the room blurs at the edges, the champagne and the chandeliers and the happy faces all swimming together.
Somewhere in this city, my husband is having dinner with another woman while I sit alone at the most important night of my life.
“Mrs. Channing?” Albie’s voice is tentative and worried. “Do you want me to go get him? I could tell him you need him. He’d come, if he knew…”
“No.”
The word comes out calm and final, a stranger’s voice from a stranger’s mouth.
“No,” I say again. “Don’t tell him anything, and don’t fetch him like I’m a child who needs supervision. If he wanted to be here, he would be.”
“Ma’am…”
“Thank you, Albie.”
I hang up before he can say anything else.
I sit perfectly still, the phone clutched in my hand, the noise of the room washing over me like waves against a shore. The purple-haired novelist is asking me a question, her face creased with concern, but I can’t hear her over the roaring in my ears.
He chose. He chose work and ambition and Isabella fucking Lockhart over the one thing I asked him to show up for.
The rage comes first, hot and bright, burning through my veins, and I want to scream, throw my champagne glass against the wall, storm out of this ballroom and drive to that restaurant and make a scene so spectacular it ends up on the front page of every tabloid in the city.
But I don’t, because I am not going to fall apart, not here, not in front of these people, not on the night that was supposed to be mine. He doesn’t get to ruin this.
I reach for my champagne with a perfectly steady hand, take a sip, and smile at the novelist and say “Sorry, I missed that, what did you say?” in a voice that sounds almost normal.
I will not beg for scraps, and I will not chase after a man who couldn’t be bothered to remember me. If he forgot, if he chose that woman over his own wife, then there’s nothing left to salvage. He made his choice, and now I’m making mine.
The ceremony continues, and I drink my champagne and laugh at the right moments and trade business cards with people who might actually care about my work.
I compliment the blogger’s dress and discuss cover design with the editor and listen to the novelist talk about her publishing journey with what I hope is convincing interest, and I am charming and present and nailing this, and if my smile feels like glass about to shatter, no one needs to know.
“And now,” the emcee says, stepping up to the microphone, “for the Romance category. Please welcome our special guest presenter…”
The room goes quiet, and then a murmur ripples through the crowd, growing into gasps and scattered applause.
“…Dean Calloway!”
My head snaps toward the stage.
Dean Calloway, the Dean Calloway, A-list actor, Hollywood golden boy, star of the action franchise that broke box office records three years running, is walking onto the stage in a perfectly tailored navy suit, and the room full of indie authors is losing its collective mind.
The editor at my table leans over and whispers that his production company sponsors this award, that it’s how they scout books worth adapting, a talent search dressed up as philanthropy, and I nod like that explains anything, and all I can think is what the hell is happening.
“Thank you,” Dean says into the microphone, flashing that famous smile, the one that’s launched a thousand magazine covers. “I have to admit, I’ve read all five finalists in this category. Romance doesn’t get the respect it deserves, and these authors are changing that.”
He opens the envelope, drawing out the moment, and I realize I’m holding my breath.
“The Indie Voice Award for Best Romance Novel goes to…” A pause that lasts approximately seven thousand years. “E.C. Hart, for Coming Home.”
The room explodes, and I don’t move, can’t move. Around me people are clapping and turning to look at me and the blogger is grabbing my arm saying oh my God that’s you go go go, but my legs won’t cooperate, won’t carry me toward the stage where Dean Calloway is waiting with my award.
Then I stand. The walk to the stage takes forever and no time at all, my heels clicking against the floor, the empty chair watching me go like a silent accusation.
People are smiling at me and reaching out to touch my arm as I pass, and I smile back automatically, muscle memory taking over when my brain can’t function.
Dean Calloway hands me the award, a crystal trophy that catches the light and throws rainbows across his famous face, and he leans in close enough that only I can hear.
“Whoever that seat was for is the biggest fool in California.” His voice is warm, with none of the Hollywood smoothness I expected. “I read your book twice. It’s extraordinary.”
I take the trophy and turn to face the microphone and the room full of people waiting to hear what I have to say.
“I…” My voice catches, and I have to clear my throat and start again. “I wrote this book in the hours between midnight and dawn, when no one was watching. I wrote it for every woman who’s ever felt invisible in her own life. Who’s been told her dreams are too small to matter.”
The words come easier now, pouring out like they’ve been waiting years for this moment.
“I wrote it because love stories aren’t silly or trivial. They’re the most human thing there is, wanting to be seen, wanting to matter to someone, wanting to believe that even after everything breaks, you can still find your way back.”
My eyes find the empty chair.
“So thank you. Thank you for seeing me.”
I don’t thank my husband. I don’t thank anyone specific at all.
When I walk off that stage, trophy clutched to my chest, someone in the audience is filming on their phone, and I don’t think anything of it, and I only know that the night is mine now, claimed and earned, and I refuse to let it be stolen.
I work the room for another hour, trading business cards and accepting congratulations with a smile that doesn’t waver. A woman named Tessa approaches me, sharp-dressed and all business, with a handshake that suggests she doesn’t waste time on people who aren’t worth her attention.
“I’m a literary agent,” she says, “and I’d love to represent you. That speech alone tells me you understand what readers want.”
I say yes on the spot.
At eleven o’clock, I call for a car.
The house is dark when I pull into the driveway, which means he’s not home yet, which means he’s still out there somewhere doing God knows what with God knows who, and I walk up the front steps with my trophy in one hand and my clutch in the other, fumbling for my keys in the darkness.
Headlights sweep across the driveway behind me. I turn, and Kai’s car pulls up, and the door opens, and he gets out.
“Erika…”
His face is pale and panicked, his tie missing and his shirt half untucked like he threw himself into the car without thinking, and he looks like a man who just realized he’s made a terrible mistake. Good.
“Baby, my phone died. I lost track of time. Isabella showed up at the office with some emergency about her father, and I had to help her sort it out, and I didn’t realize how late it was until…”
I stand there in my champagne silk gown, trophy clutched to my chest, and let him talk.