Chapter 9 #3
I looked at the contract sample in front of me. The names blurred slightly.
“It stings,” I said.
Mia came around the table and sat beside me.
“Then let it sting,” she replied. “You are allowed to lose things and still know you made the best decision you could.”
The sentence sounded too much like something Damian might say if he had grown up with better language. I hated that I thought of him.
“What if I did not make the best decision?” I asked. “What if I made the easiest one under pressure?”
Mia was quiet.
“Did you?” she asked.
“I do not know.”
“Then do not decide today. Keep working. Keep asking questions. Do not let anyone make the answer for you.”
At noon, I found Damian still downstairs, standing beside the car in the rain. He was speaking to Marcus. When he saw me, he ended the conversation.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “A client canceled.”
His face changed. “Because of me.”
“Because of the name. Because of the story. Because people like easy things.”
“I can have someone speak to them.”
The offer was immediate. So was my anger.
“No.”
He nodded. “All right.”
“Do not fix it.”
“I will not.”
“I do not want the Voss family making clients stay.”
“I said I will not.”
I looked at him. Rain darkened his coat. He looked tired. Not offended by my tone. Just tired in the way I was tired.
“What will you do?” I asked.
“Nothing you do not ask me to do.”
The answer did not repair the cancellation. It did something more dangerous. It made me believe change might be possible.
I stepped closer, lowering my voice.
“I kissed you last night,” I said.
“You did.”
“I do not regret it.”
His eyes held mine.
“Neither do I.”
“But I do not want it to become another thing you use to decide what happens.”
“It will not.”
“How can you promise that?”
“Because I am not entitled to anything from you.”
The rain kept falling around us. A truck passed at the end of the block. Inside the studio, Mia was probably already reorganizing a crisis I had not stayed to help solve.
I looked at Damian Voss, the man who had entered my life like a debt collector and stood before me now as though the most difficult thing he had ever done was wait.
“I am still angry with you,” I said.
“I know.”
“I do not trust you completely.”
“I know.”
“I may never forgive how this began.”
His jaw tightened. “I know.”
I almost smiled.
“Then why are you still here?” I asked.
His answer came without hesitation.
“Because you asked me not to disappear either.”
I had not realized I had.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then I opened the car door and slid into the backseat.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Back to the office,” I said. “Mia will be furious if I let a client cancellation ruin the whole day.”
Damian got in beside me only after I had moved to make room.
The car pulled away from the curb.
For the first time since the marriage, returning to work did not feel like I was trying to recover my old life.
It felt like I was building one.
By the time the Voss foundation gala became unavoidable, I had decided I hated events where everyone wore black tie and pretended philanthropy was not also a competition.
The gala occupied the museum’s west atrium, a glass-walled space I had worked in before but never attended as a guest. The Voss Foundation’s invitation described the evening as a benefit for emergency housing and hospital legal aid.
The guest list included judges, developers, city council staff, museum trustees, and enough people with private security that I wondered whether anyone had brought a wallet without a gun nearby.
Damian stood behind me in the mirror of our bedroom while I considered two dresses and the wisdom of setting both on fire.
“The blue one,” he said.
I looked over my shoulder. “You have opinions about eveningwear?”
“I have opinions about people looking at you.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
He came closer, stopping behind me without touching. He wore a black tuxedo with no visible effort, which was irritating. His cufflinks were plain silver. His face had that composed look he used before a meeting where someone might try to ruin him.
“The blue one makes you look like you intend to win an argument,” he said.
“I usually do.”
“I know.”
The words were quiet. Private. I picked up the blue dress.
At the museum, the staff greeted me by my new name.
Mrs. Voss. It still struck wrong, not because I disliked it exactly, but because it appeared to erase too much with two syllables.
Elena Voss sounded like someone who had always belonged in rooms where champagne appeared without anyone asking for it.
Damian’s hand settled lightly at the center of my back as we entered. Not pressing. Not steering. A signal that he was there.
I noticed every time he moved it away when someone approached, as if he was making sure the gesture did not become a claim.
The gala was beautiful. Of course it was.
Low arrangements of white orchids floated above black stone tables.
A string quartet played near the staircase.
Photographs of housing projects and legal-aid clinics were projected across the walls in slow rotation.
I had planned events with larger budgets, but never one where every detail seemed designed to remind people who had paid for the room.
Adrian found us near the donor wall.
“You look happy,” he told me.
“I look expensive,” I replied.
“Also true.”
Damian gave him a flat look.
Adrian smiled. “I have new information. I will be charming about it until we can speak privately.”
“You have never been charming,” Damian said.
“I am devastatingly charming. You are simply emotionally undereducated.”
Before Damian could respond, a woman with a dark bob and a sharp navy gown approached. She wore a badge identifying her as Sofia Reyes, Assistant District Attorney.
I recognized the name from the papers. Sofia Reyes had been attached to a public-corruption unit investigating an unnamed group of city contractors. She was younger than I expected, perhaps thirty, and carried herself like someone who had learned to enter rooms where nobody wanted her.
“Mr. Voss,” she said. “Mrs. Voss.”
“Ms. Reyes,” Damian answered.
Her gaze moved to me. “Congratulations on your marriage.”
“Thank you.”
“I hope you will forgive my curiosity. Wedding planners tend to have excellent taste.”
“You would be surprised how little taste has to do with a marriage,” I said.
Her eyes warmed. “I would not.”