27. Delphine #2
I could still see it if I closed my eyes.
The chandelier light. The shocked faces of an entire ballroom that had watched me break a woman’s nose and never once found out why.
Heath across the room, holding Kendall instead of coming to me.
The gold box on the floor at my feet with the lid still on, holding the only thing in that building that was mine.
I had been so broken that night. So lost. So certain that my life was over, that my marriage was destroyed, that I would never recover from the betrayal I thought I had witnessed.
And now here I was. Standing in the same house, at the same event, surrounded by the same people. But everything was different.
I was different.
The woman who had walked into that Christmas gala had been small.
Shrinking. A Fairchild wife first and herself second, always bracing for the next blow, always trying to make herself acceptable to people who would never accept her.
She had been so afraid of losing her place in this world that she had forgotten she was allowed to have a place of her own.
The woman standing on this terrace now was none of those things.
I had my own career. My own name on buildings I had helped design, on projects I had brought to life with my own hands and my own mind.
I had walked into this gala tonight not as Heath Fairchild’s wife but as Delphine Roux Fairchild, structural engineer, partner in the European expansion, a professional in my own right.
I had my own family. Parents four thousand miles away in Boston, who were probably video calling right now to see if Sophie was behaving herself. A husband who loved me fiercely and showed it every single day. A daughter who called me Mama and thought I was the center of the universe.
I had my own self back. The woman I had been before I got lost in trying to be someone else. The woman who had opinions and ambitions and dreams that had nothing to do with charity galas or society approval or the right fork at dinner.
The ground had shifted completely under my feet. And I was still standing.
“There you are.”
Heath’s voice came from behind me, warm and familiar. I felt his arms wrap around my waist, pulling me back against his chest.
“Sophie?”
“With Blair and Blythe. They’re teaching her to wave at boats. It’s very educational.”
I laughed and leaned into him, feeling the solid warmth of his body against mine.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“The last time we were here. The Christmas gala.”
His arms tightened around me. “That was a bad night.”
“The worst night.” I turned in his arms so I could look at his face. “But we survived it.”
“We did.”
“And we’re better now. Stronger. I didn’t think that was possible, you know. After everything that happened. I thought we were too broken to fix.”
“I thought so too, for a while.” He smoothed a curl back from my cheek, the gesture so tender it made my chest ache. “But you wouldn’t give up on us.”
“Neither would you. Sitting on my parents’ porch for a whole day and a whole night in December.
Sending the divorce papers back unsigned.
Talking to me through my parents’ front door at midnight while I stood on the other side of it and pretended I couldn’t hear you.
Leaving me voicemail after voicemail when you knew I wasn’t picking up. ”
“All of them?” He pulled back to look at me. “You told me it was only some of them.”
“I lied.” I smoothed his lapel, not meeting his eyes. “Every single one. Twice. Some of them more than twice. I had them memorized, Heath. I could have recited them to you in that hospital room and instead I said some of them, in my very coldest voice, because I was not about to hand you that.”
He was staring at me.
“Eleven years,” he said, “and you’re still the most frightening person I’ve ever met.”
“I meant every word.”
“I know that now.”
Music drifted out from the ballroom, slow and romantic. Heath held out his hand.
“Dance with me?”
“Here? On the terrace?”
“Why not? Best view in the house.”
I took his hand and let him pull me close. We swayed together in the warm summer darkness, the music barely audible, the lights of the harbor twinkling below us.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“For what?”
“For giving me another chance. For believing I could be better.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “For Sophie. For this life we built.”
“We built it together.”
“We did. Partners.”
“Partners.”
He kissed me, soft and sweet, and I let myself sink into it. The taste of champagne on his lips. The familiar scent of his cologne. The way his hand spread across my lower back, warm and possessive and absolutely right.
When we finally pulled apart, I saw Sophie’s face pressed against the glass of the French doors, watching us with intense curiosity. Blair was holding her up so she could see, both of them grinning.
“I think we have an audience,” I said.
“We always have an audience. That’s parenthood.”
“Mama!” Sophie’s voice was muffled through the glass. “Papa! Dance!”
Heath laughed and released me. “Duty calls.”
We went back inside to collect our daughter, who immediately demanded to be part of the dancing. Heath lifted her up and spun her around the edge of the ballroom while she shrieked with delight, her new bunny clutched in one hand, the slightly crushed hydrangea still in the other.
I stood with Blair and Blythe, watching them.
“He’s a good father,” Blair observed.
“The best.”
“And you’re happy? Really happy?”
I thought about the question. About our little stone house in the French countryside with its view of the church steeple.
About morning coffee on the terrace while Sophie toddled through the garden, naming flowers in two languages.
About lazy Sunday afternoons when Heath read engineering journals and I sketched building plans and Sophie napped between us on the big bed, her tiny hand resting on my arm.
About the work I was doing. The bridges and buildings taking shape under my direction. The team I was assembling in Paris. The reputation I was building, finally, under my own name.
About my parents in Boston, on the phone every Sunday and in the spare room every summer, always ready with the kind of unconditional love that had anchored me through the worst year of my life.