FEBRUARY 2003
I MADE IT TO SOHO AND INTO CALEB’S ARMS BEFORE I broke, just a small crack, a fissure for a single tear to leak through and the promise of pressure swelling beneath. This could blast through every foundation I’d steadily built. This could leave me shattered.
Yet the thought of not seeing it through felt worse. If I turned Harper in, I would obliterate all I had until there was nothing left to rebuild.
But maybe I’d made things worse. Maybe if she’d called the police she could have said it was self-defense, that he was trying to hurt her and she’d get a lighter sentence and public sympathy on her side.
But if they found out now, this would be …
murder. Perversion of the course of justice.
Prevention of lawful and decent burial. Aiding and abetting.
I’d be locked up too.
But I hadn’t even thought about that—and that on its own terrified me. Because last time I’d valued myself so little I’d ended up in rehab.
I stumbled from the taxi and didn’t make it into the club because Caleb was smoking outside and rushed to haul me into his arms and spin me like he had on the carpet, and, god, that felt like years ago.
“Oh, nice perfume,” he said. “Woody.”
I sorely hoped that wasn’t an indictment (or, frankly, an announcement).
When he put me down a frown tugged between his brows. “Hey,” he said softly, reaching to wipe a tear from the corner of my eyes. “You alright, Heywood?”
“It’s just a lot,” I said, which felt like the only honest thing I could give him.
“Yeah, it must be. Winning here on home soil without your parents? I’m glad you came and joined us, but do you want to leave?”
Yes. But I had to make sure there were pictures. “No, no I don’t. But … Caleb can you make sure I don’t touch anything tonight?”
A club like Charlatans? You could get anything.
I thought of New York, of the pulsing lights and the fast-melting tabs and how easy it was when you were Nadine Heywood. How tempting all those offers were …
Caleb’s concern disarmed me—his deepening scowl and the way he stepped closer, like he really did care. “Do you have a sponsor?”
I shook my head. “Not that kind of program. Sorry, I shouldn’t put this on you, I just …”
“I’m glad you did. Don’t worry, we can stick together. Look out for each other.”
I nodded. “I just want to dance and forget everything.”
He smiled and held out a hand. “That we can do.”
———
I thought of Harper when he held me, his hands on my waist as we danced.
I thought of Harper when he smiled. And I thought of Harper when, weighted with unspoken suggestion, he offered to see me back to my hotel because he wanted to make sure I got home safe.
(Harper had done that, followed me to my hotel door as I drunkenly made my way home.
Why? Because the only bad thing that could happen to me was her?
It all felt hollow, false, pointedly obtuse, and indicative of something so much larger that we were ignoring.
Had, perhaps, been ignoring for some time.)
And I knew I couldn’t do it, couldn’t see it through, because my heart was not as practical as I had hoped. It was devastated and traumatized and screaming for me to stop doing the terrible things I’d been doing.
“Caleb, I really don’t want to be alone tonight,” I said honestly, without the flirtation we both might have hoped, and more like a defeated sigh.
“You can stay at mine, if you want. My hotel room has a sofa bed I’m more than happy to take.”
“If I do that, they’ll think we fucked.”
He arched a brow. “I’m fine with them thinking that if you are.”
“Can we? Somehow being emotional feels …”
“Like too much to feed to the vultures? Yeah, I get it, Heywood. Don’t worry about it. Just tell everyone I was good if they ask, yeah?”
———
I was photographed in the club. I was photographed on the street. I was photographed in my ball gown once more, outside his Mayfair hotel the next morning as I got a taxi back to Richmond.
My room still bore remnants of the night before: my clothes kicked aside in favor of Joel’s tracksuit that I’d worn out the hotel, my shower plug was edged with red, turquoise necklace in a heap on the counter, and I had to sling my dress, slightly less beaded than it had been before my outing into London, over a chair because I no longer had the bag to hang it in.
I felt more tired than I had in my life. I’d managed a few hours of sleep and those only out of sheer exhaustion. All those feelings I’d expected to crash down upon me felt too much for my broken body to handle, and so it was shutting down instead.
I might never feel anything ever again.
I’d showered at Caleb’s, washing any lingering dirt and grime away, but I showered again now because I still didn’t feel clean. I let the water run off me, just staring into the tiles and wondered if Harper had done the same as the blood ran from her.
We should be together right now. She was the only one who might understand this.
My phone was ringing when I finally emerged. The towels felt too soft against me. I wanted harshness. I wanted to feel like I fit in this world still.
“Hello?”
“Nadine Heywood,” Ruchi growled. “Care to talk to me about last night?”
I caught my breath. I wondered if she’d managed to have the CCTV wiped. If she hadn’t did I need to worry? We’d done nothing incriminating on it, but it was better to leave as many question marks as possible.
Something else I knew from movies: solving a crime is more like piecing together a story. The police just needed a coherent narrative. The defense would do the same.
The best story always won.
We just needed to fill theirs with plot holes.
“That depends on what’s currently in the papers.”
“You’re in the papers winning a damn BAFTA. Everything that came afterward is going to likely be in tomorrow’s. You told me that you were sneaking people in, not going out and certainly not sleeping with Caleb Krause.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not particularly, though I don’t appreciate finding out from my contacts on the cutting room floors. What happened?”
“The people I had coming over bailed, and I wanted to have fun. The rest was accidental.”
“Alright,” she said, drawing the word out. “Nadine, is there something you’re not telling me?”
Cold, unseeing eyes. Congealing blood. Teeth beneath a harsh metal edge.
But I knew that tone, felt it choke me because she had a way of asking questions, which always got the truth out of me. “I was drunk.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” I confirmed. I knew why she was asking—I’d have some questions too if my client turned up to a club alone in a ball gown.
“Okay. Thank you for being honest. To check, you’re aware the pictures tomorrow will be along the Wild Night Out with Nadine Heywood and Is Krausewood the Couple We’ve Been Waiting For? variety?”
I glanced at my clothes, still crumpled in a heap, still, around the edges, a little bloodstained. “Yes, that’s fine. I’ve faced worse.”
———
Amos was beside himself at the damaged gown.
“Please, it’ll be on every cover going. McQueen will be delighted.”
“Never,” he snarled, “do that again. I could have had you in a normal, perfectly ruinable dress in minutes.”
“Okay, okay. Noted.”
“And where is the bloody bag for this?”
I sensed he was a few seconds away from swearing in his mother’s French, which was always a bad sign.
“I don’t know,” I winced. “I was drunk when I left. I don’t really remember. Now can you stop shouting? I’m hungover.”
Ah, and there those expletives were.
“You are irresponsible. I’m banning you from nice gowns. You’ll wear a sack to your next red carpet, so help me god.”
“You wouldn’t let me do that for the KCAs,” I muttered.
Oh, a second wave of curses, this even more virulent than the first.
Nadine 2, Harper 0. Nadine Heywood Scoops BAFTA and Goes Home with Harper Moore’s Ex-Fiancé All in One Night—Ouch!
Mooregram on the Rocks? Sources Close to Couple Say There May Be Trouble in Paradise with Jealousy Row Following Krausewood Hookup
Oscar Nominations Announced! With In Your Own Way and Wilder Ones Set to Dominate, All Eyes Are on Best Actress Nominees Harper Moore and Nadine Heywood
My phone vibrated so violently it fell off the vanity table, snapping open in the process, and I could hear Ruchi down the line, distant and excited—breaking the news I already held in my hands.
I was obsessive about headlines now.
A distraction—and here this was. And what a distraction—the sort my former hopes and dreams were built on.
But I couldn’t do this now. Couldn’t stare the cameras down. Couldn’t ignite a feud already burnt to cinders and ash.
I couldn’t see Harper with the whole world watching and pretend I didn’t know how her husband’s blood felt beneath my nails or the precise blue of his lips.
I didn’t know where we stood, didn’t know how I felt about any of this (no, what I felt was delirious, out of control, like I was careening too quickly to make sense of anything and growing dizzier still with every effort to focus on that fixed, still Harper-shaped point in the center).
Could I really stand on that carpet, knowing I’d gone to such lengths for her and pretend there was a line somewhere that I wouldn’t cross for her?
(Why wouldn’t I?)
I threw the newspaper at the wall, pages scattering across the floor.
Fuck.