The Woman He Lost (Broken Vows #2)

Chapter 1

Angela Hunter knew how to make a room unforgettable.

She had built Vellum & Verdigris on that gift.

It was more than the white walls, the chilled champagne, and the expensive hush of people who came to be seen as much as to see.

It was the desire beneath all of it. A hunger to own beauty before someone richer reached for it first. Tonight, every inch of the gallery shimmered.

Tall arrangements of white roses and black calla lilies stood in sculptural glass vases near the entrance.

Rain silvered the tall front windows, turning the city into a blur of wet pavement and glittering towers.

Inside, the marble floors gleamed beneath a hundred careful footsteps.

Servers moved through the crowd with trays of champagne, their black jackets crisp, their faces smiling.

By every measure that mattered, the opening was a triumph.

Collectors arrived early. Critics lingered longer than they needed to.

Three red dots already marked the cards beside the strongest paintings in the front room, and Angela had heard enough murmured envy near the bar to know the night would be discussed with the right kind of jealousy. She should’ve been happy.

Instead, her gaze kept returning to her husband.

Blake Hunter stood near the back of the gallery in a perfectly tailored black suit, one hand wrapped around a glass of bourbon he didn’t need.

He looked handsome, and faintly bored in the way wealthy men sometimes mistook for depth.

When he laughed, people glanced over. When was quiet, they adjusted their volume.

Lily Saint stood too close to him. It wasn’t close enough to cause a scandal, Lily was much too careful for that.

She never crossed the line in a way Angela could mention without sounding petty and insecure.

She stood at the edge of Blake's circle of attention, soft and luminous in pale silk, her blond hair pinned loosely at the nape of her neck, her mouth curved as though she and Blake had been sharing secrets long before Angela looked their way.

Lily touched his sleeve. It was quick almost nothing.

Still Angela's fingers tightened around the stem of her champagne flute.

Lily laughed at something Blake said, tipping her head back with practiced carelessness.

Blake's mouth softened, and Angela felt the familiar ache bloom in her chest. It wasn’t a surprise anymore.

That was the humiliating part of it. This pain had become part of the marriage, a shadow she kept stepping around while Blake insisted she was imagining things.

She told him this was happening. She told him Lily was too intimate, too available, too eager to stand where a wife should be. Blake had kissed her forehead and told her she was exhausted.

"She works for you, Angela," he had said. "Don't turn her into something ugly because we've been tense."

We. As if the distance between them had grown by itself. As if she were being silly. As if Lily hadn’t been cultivating it. The worst part was how carefully Lily had learned the terrain of their marriage.

She had started small. A late-night message after a foundation dinner Angela missed because she was preparing an opening.

A comment about Richard Hunter's impossible expectations, said gently enough to sound like sympathy instead of flirtation.

A private joke about Blake's hatred of overcooked salmon.

A soft hand at his elbow when a donor cornered him too long. Nothing that looked bad by itself.

Angela knew better. She could see the picture being painted being painted right in front of her eyes.

One glance at the right moment. One placement in the right room.

One collector made to feel chosen enough to reach.

Lily had been curating intimacy with Blake for months.

She’d tried to stop it, but Blake dismissed her concerns.

Angela watched Lily take a small plate from a passing tray and hand it to him before the server reached them.

"You haven't eaten all night," Lily said.

Blake glanced down, surprised, then gave her a tired smile. "You noticed."

The words were harmless. The tone wasn’t.

Angela asked him if he’d eaten forty minutes ago, and he brushed her off. He was fine. This was her night. She should stop worrying. Lily asked, and he accepted the care as if it had been waiting for him.

Angela sipped her champagne and tasted nothing.

"Angela."

She turned and found Connor King beside her.

For one strange second, the years between college and now folded in on themselves.

Connor had the same steady gaze, the same thoughtful reserve that had made him seem older than the rest of them even at twenty-one.

Now the boy she had once known in lecture halls and dim campus parties had become a man whose name could open doors.

His dark suit was simple yet elegant, his watch understated, his expression hard to impress.

He looked impressed by her, he always did.

"Connor." She smiled because she was very good at smiling. "I wasn't sure you'd make it."

"I told you I would."

"Most collectors say that when they want first refusal and a glass of free champagne."

"I'm not most collectors."

"No," Angela said. "You've always been much more difficult."

One corner of his mouth lifted. "And you've always had a better eye than anyone wanted to admit."

The compliment should’ve slid off her. She received praise for her taste every day, but Connor said it directly, with real sincerity, and something tender inside her responded before she could stop it. There had been a time when Connor's approval meant so much.

That was before. Before Blake. Before Vellum & Verdigris.

Before Angela learned what it cost to be a wife.

Before she learned that silence and dignity aren’t the same thing.

Connor had walked beside her across a snowy campus and argued with her about art as if her opinion mattered more than his own.

He never tried to charm her into agreement.

He listened, disagreed, listened harder, then called her brilliant with the same calm certainty he used tonight.

Then Blake had entered her life like a whirlwind.

Blake, who had once spoken to her as if she were the only woman in any room.

Before her first major opening, when Vellum & Verdigris still smelled of fresh paint and fear, Blake stood with her in the empty gallery and taken her cold hands in his.

He bought the first painting she ever sold under her own name, not because he liked it best, but because he said he wanted proof of the day the world started catching up with her eye.

"No matter how crowded these rooms get," he had told her then, "I'll always find you first."

Tonight, Angela had spent half the evening looking for him while he stood beside another woman.

"Thank you," she said quietly to Connor.

Connor looked past her, taking in the room without being rude. "You did this exactly right."

"Did I?"

"You know you did."

Angela almost laughed. "Careful. If you keep being sincere, people will think you've lost your edge."

"I save my edge for people who waste my time." His gaze returned to her face. "You look tired."

That was the danger of Connor. Even years later, he noticed what others politely ignored.

"I'm hosting," she said. "Tired is part of the dress code."

"It doesn't have to be."

Angela took a sip of champagne instead of answering. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lily lean closer to Blake. Her fingers brushed his cuff as she murmured something, then she looked directly at Angela while smiling. It wasn’t long enough to be obvious, but it was long enough to be cruel.

Connor followed her gaze. His expression didn’t change, but his posture stiffened.

"I should circulate," Angela said.

"Of course."

She stepped away before he could say more.

Her heels clicked softly over marble as she crossed the gallery, nodding to a critic, touching a donor's arm, accepting congratulations with the polished warmth she had perfected years ago. Angela moved through the gallery she’d built, toward the husband who had promised never to let her feel alone.

Blake saw her coming. His expression tightened, then smoothed.

Lily stepped back just enough to appear innocent.

"Angela," Lily said, soft as cashmere. "The Kellers are asking about the smaller Ruiz piece. I told them you'd speak with them personally."

"Did you?" Angela asked.

Lily blinked. "I thought you'd want the sale."

"I want my staff to stop making promises for me."

Color touched Lily's cheeks. "Of course. I didn't mean to overstep."

Blake sighed under his breath.

Angela looked at him. "Something to say?"

"Not here."

A laugh rose nearby, bright and careless. Angela felt humiliation climb her throat, hot and acidic, but she refused to give it a voice.

Lily glanced between them. "I can go."

"That would be appropriate," Angela said.

Lily lowered her gaze and slipped away. She did it beautifully, like a wounded woman granting privacy instead of an employee being dismissed.

Blake watched her go for a second too long.

Angela looked at him. "You always make me feel so graceful when I have to ask another woman to give me a moment with my husband."

His jaw tightened. "Don't start this tonight."

"I didn't start it."

"This is your opening."

"Yes," she said. "And somehow I keep finding my consultant holding your attention."

"She was helping with the event."

"She knew you hadn't eaten but I’d already asked and been dismissed."

"That’s not a crime."

"No. It's intimacy."

"You're reading into everything."

Angela leaned closer so no one else could hear. "I'm reading what she keeps writing in front of me."

His nostrils flared. "She admires you."

"She resents me."

"She admires what you built. You've been hard on her for weeks."

"Because she wants you."