10. Christine
— ? —
Christine
The dress is armor.
Red silk, floor-length, with a neckline that says I am not destroyed and a fit that says I have not let myself fall apart. I found it in my mother’s closet - something she wore to a cousin’s wedding decades ago, altered hastily by her neighbor who does tailoring on the side.
It’s not designer. It’s not custom. It’s not the kind of dress Christine Morgan would have worn six weeks ago.
But Christine Morgan is dead. I killed her in a hospital room, alone, and whatever version of me survived the delivery is someone new. Someone harder. Someone who wears hand-me-down silk and high heels she can barely walk in and faces the world like she has nothing left to lose.
Because she doesn’t.
The charity event is for the hospital where Isabella was born.
I can’t avoid it - my name is on the committee, has been since before the pregnancy, back when I still played the role of dutiful billionaire’s wife.
Backing out now would be admitting defeat, and I refuse to give anyone that satisfaction.
Especially not her.
Mom watches me apply lipstick in the bathroom mirror, Isabella sleeping in the carrier at my feet.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“The press will be there. The photographers. Everyone who’s been writing about you-”
The engagement diamond came off the day I left the hospital. The wedding band is still on my hand. I’ve stopped pretending that’s an oversight.
“Good.” I blot my lips, examine the result. Perfect. Untouchable. “Let them see me.”
“Sweetheart-”
“Mom.” I turn to face her, and whatever she sees in my expression makes her go quiet. “I have spent six years hiding. Smiling for cameras, making excuses for my husband, pretending everything was fine. I’m done hiding.”
She doesn’t argue. Just hands me my clutch and kisses my forehead and whispers give them hell.
***
The venue is exactly what I expected - crystal chandeliers, champagne towers, women in gowns that cost more than most people’s mortgages. I used to belong here. Used to glide through rooms like these on Benedict’s arm, smiling and nodding and playing the part.
Now I glide through alone.
And I feel more powerful than I ever did beside him.
The whispers start the moment I enter. Of course they do. Christine Morgan, abandoned wife, mother of the billionaire’s baby, here in the flesh looking like she hasn’t cried herself to sleep every night for the past month.
Let them whisper.
I grab a champagne glass from a passing tray and don’t drink it - just hold it like a prop, like a weapon, something to do with my hands while I navigate the minefield of false sympathy and barely concealed curiosity.
And then I see him.
He’s across the room, near the donor wall, looking exactly like what he is: a man destroying himself one sleepless night at a time. Gaunt. Shadowed. The suit is perfect - it’s always perfect - but underneath it, he’s falling apart.
Our eyes meet.
The world stops.
Everything else fades - the music, the chatter, the weight of a hundred staring eyes - and there’s just him, looking at me like I’m the only thing in the room. Like I’ve always been the only thing in the room.
I hate that he can still do this to me.
He approaches slowly, carefully, like I’m a wild animal he might spook. His steps are measured, his hands at his sides, and I watch him come closer and feel my heart rate spike despite my best efforts.
“You look beautiful.”
I arch an eyebrow. “I look like a woman who’s been up with a colicky baby for three days.”
“Beautiful,” he repeats, quieter. Like the word costs him something.
“Why are you here?”
He swallows. “There’s an infant care unit on the fourth floor. I endowed it. Equipment, staffing, the family rooms, all of it. I didn’t publicize it.” A pause. “They took care of both of you when I didn’t. It seemed… right.”
Something cracks in my chest. Just a hairline fracture, just enough to let a sliver of light through.
For a moment - just a moment - I see the man I married. The one who noticed things. Who showed up in unexpected ways. Who used to make grand gestures that weren’t about showing off, but about showing love.
I open my mouth to say something - I don’t know what, maybe thank you, maybe go to hell, maybe some impossible combination of both-
“Christine! You look amazing for someone who just had a baby.”
The voice cuts through the moment like a knife.
Pauline.
She materializes beside Benedict, her hand landing on his arm with practiced ease. She’s wearing white - of course she’s wearing white, virginal and pure and innocent - and her smile is so sweet it makes my teeth ache.
“So brave of you to come out. I know how hard the postpartum period can be, even though I haven’t had a baby yet.” She tilts her head, all false concern. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see anyone. I almost didn’t come myself. I’ve had so much free time lately.”
He doesn’t look at her.
That’s what I notice first. He doesn’t even glance in her direction. His eyes are still on me, dark and intense and filled with something I can’t quite read.
“Did you guys hear the news?” Pauline continues, undeterred by his silence.
“They’re saying me and Benedict are together.
So funny, right? Those paparazzi are always making up nonsense.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to be with someone like your husband-” She laughs, high and artificial. “But you know I could never-”
“Don’t.” Benedict’s voice is ice. Sharper than I’ve ever heard it. “Don’t touch me. Don’t speak to my wife. Don’t speak about my wife.”
The hand on his arm freezes.
“Your wife who’s divorcing you?”
The room goes quiet.
I don’t know when people started listening, but they’re listening now. A hundred faces turned toward us, phones half-raised, the delicious scent of scandal hanging in the air like perfume.
Pauline’s smile sharpens. She knows she has an audience. Knows this is her moment to strike, to cement the narrative she’s been building for weeks.
But she’s underestimated me.
I lift my chin and meet her eyes, and whatever she sees there makes her smile flicker.
“At least I’m divorcing him for his failures,” I say, my voice carrying in the sudden silence. “What’s your excuse for hanging on like a barnacle to another woman’s husband?”
Gasps.
Actual gasps, like we’re in a period drama instead of a charity gala.
Cameras flash. Phones appear from nowhere. Somewhere, a journalist is probably orgasming.
Pauline’s face goes red, then white, then something in between. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
I don’t wait for her to recover.
I turn on my borrowed heels and walk toward the exit, spine straight, head high, the red dress flowing behind me like a victory flag. I don’t look back. Don’t acknowledge the whispers, the stares, the flash of cameras capturing my retreat.
I made it to the lobby.
The coat check girl hands me my wrap with wide eyes. “Mrs. Morgan-”
“It’s Christine,” I say, because I’m not sure I’m Mrs. Morgan anymore. “Just Christine.”
The car is waiting. I slide into the backseat, close the door, and finally - finally - let myself breathe.
My hands are shaking. My heart is pounding. But something that’s been knotted in my chest for weeks has loosened, just slightly.
I stood up for myself. In public. In front of everyone who’s been whispering about me, pitying me, writing me off as the pathetic abandoned wife.
I showed them who I am.
My phone buzzes.
A text from my mother. Forwarded, no comment. He’d sent it to her, because he knew I’d blocked him and he didn’t try to go around it.
The Isabella Morgan Unit.
There’s a photo attached. A plaque, bronze and gleaming, mounted on a wall I recognize - the fourth floor, where babies fight for their lives while their parents pace and pray.
The Isabella Morgan Unit. Endowed in honor of the strength of mothers and daughters everywhere.
He named it after our daughter.
The tears come before I can stop them - hot and overwhelming, streaming down my face while the car navigates the city streets. I cry for the gesture, for the meaning behind it, for the man who still finds ways to show me who he is even when I’ve locked him out.
I cry the whole way home.