2. Margo #2
“Sorry, sorry.” Sebastian’s hand finds my waist, and he’s back at my side, completely unaware that the room just handed me a highlight reel of the life I interrupted. He presses a kiss to my temple. “That took longer than it should have. I’m here now.”
I open my mouth to point at the screen, but the photo has already cycled past, replaced by a shot of two men shaking hands on a dock decades ago, and there’s nothing to point at anymore.
“Daddy, I’m hungry,” Sandy announces, tugging his hand. “Are there tiny foods here?”
“There are extremely tiny foods here.” He crouches to her level, talking gently. “They’ve got these little things wrapped in pastry that you’ll love. And after dinner, if you’re very good, I’ll show you the deck with the glass floor. You can see straight down to the water.”
Sandy’s eyes go round. “The whole way down?”
“The whole way down.”
“Mommy, did you hear? The whole way down!”
“I heard, baby.” And I let myself have it, this small pocket of a family that almost works, Sebastian’s thumb tracing an absent circle against my hip while our daughter negotiates the terms of dessert.
This is the version I keep staying for.
And then I hear it.
“Sebastian, darling!”
My stomach turns before I even see her, because I know that voice, and I know exactly how the next ten minutes are going to unfold.
Dorothy materializes from the crowd out of nowhere, all silver hair and angular cheekbones with a smile that never quite reaches her eyes.
She’s wearing a very expensive gown, and she air-kisses Sebastian’s cheeks with the practiced grace of someone who has never done anything ungraceful in her entire life.
“Mother.” Sebastian returns the greeting with the stiff formality that characterizes all their interactions. “You look well.”
“And you look tired.” Her gaze flicks to me, registering my presence the way you’d register a piece of furniture. “Margo. What an interesting dress.”
“Thank you, Dorothy. You look lovely as always.”
The compliment tastes of vinegar, but I’ve learned that the fastest way to survive Dorothy Austen is to never give her ammunition. She collects perceived slights the way other people collect stamps, keeping them for future use.
“And where is our little Cassandra?” Dorothy’s attention moves to Sandy, and her expression softens into warmth that’s almost human. “There you are, sweetheart. Come give Grandmother a kiss.”
Sandy obliges, because Sandy hasn’t yet learned that her grandmother’s affection comes with strings attached. Dorothy holds her at arm’s length afterward, examining her as if she’s a prized possession.
“She looks more like an Austen every day,” Dorothy says, and it’s not a compliment to me. “The bone structure is finally coming through.”
I bite my tongue so hard I taste copper.
“Come.” Dorothy takes Sebastian’s arm, physically extracting him from my side. “There are people you need to greet. The Castellanos just arrived, and they’re very eager to discuss the Barcelona port expansion.”
“Mother, we just got here. Surely the Castellanos can wait five minutes.”
“They’ve come a very long way, Sebastian.” She’s already turning him toward the crowd, her grip light and absolute. “It would be rude to keep them waiting.”
He looks back at me, jaw tight, caught between the two of us the way he always is and never seems to notice. Then he leans in, mouth close to my ear, low enough that only I can hear.
“Ten minutes. I’ll find you. I promise.”
His lips brush my temple, and then he lets his mother steer him into the sea of tuxedos and diamonds.
I could have said no. I could have held onto his arm and made him choose, right there, in front of everyone.
But I already know how that math works out.
If I forbid him, he’ll go anyway, and then I’ll have spent the goodwill and lost the argument, and he’ll wear that patient, wounded look that says I’m the one being difficult. So I let him go. Again.
It’s becoming my signature move.
She sweeps him away without a backward glance, leaving me standing with my four-year-old and the distinct impression that I’ve just been dismissed.
“Mommy?” Sandy tugs at my hand, looking up with the patience of a child who has been waiting approximately forever. “Daddy said there were tiny foods. He promised.”
He did promise. Right before his mother walked off with him. Add it to the list.
“Right.” I manage a smile for her. “Come on. We’ll find them ourselves.”
So the two of us go hunting for hors d’oeuvres without him, which is fitting, because doing things without Sebastian is becoming the theme of the evening.
We navigate through the crowd, and I try not to notice how many conversations stop when I approach, how many eyes slide past me as if I’m not worth the effort of acknowledgment.
These are Sebastian’s people, investors and board members and old-money families who have known each other for generations, and five years of marriage hasn’t made me one of them.
I’m reaching for a fresh glass when I see her.
Therese Walton is even more beautiful in person than she was in photographs.
Tall and willowy, with honey-blonde hair swept into an elegant updo and a gown the exact color of seafoam, like she coordinated with the ship’s color scheme.
She’s standing near the windows with a cluster of admirers, laughing at a remark one of them made, and she looks exactly as someone who has never once questioned whether she belongs anywhere.
She catches me staring.
For a moment, our eyes meet across the room, and a wordless exchange passes between us, recognition, maybe, or assessment. Then she smiles, warm and gracious, and begins making her way toward me.
“You must be Margo.”
Her voice is cultured, melodic, the kind of voice that has never had to shout to be heard. I do my best to maintain my composure.
“And you must be Therese.” I return her smile with one of my own. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
A brief look crosses her face, amusement, maybe, or pity. “Have you? Sebastian always was terrible at sharing. I’m surprised he mentioned me at all.”
“He didn’t, actually. I found out from the christening itinerary.”
I say it lightly, as if it’s a charming anecdote. Therese’s smile doesn’t waver, but her eyes narrow.
“How awkward for you.” She sips her champagne. “Sebastian and I go back ages. Even when he went and fell in love with someone completely unexpected.” Her gaze travels over me, assessing. “You’re from Havenport, isn’t that right? The little fishing village on the coast?”
“That’s right.”
“How charming. Sebastian always did have a soft spot for strays.”
The word lands as a slap, but her delivery is so smooth, so effortlessly friendly, that I can’t even react without looking paranoid. Still, the heat climbs up my neck and my mouth is already opening for a reply.
“Mommy, what’s a stray?” Sandy tugs my hand, peering up between us with her whole face scrunched in concentration. “Is it a kitty?”
Therese’s gaze drops to my daughter, and for half a second, the fake warmth slides right off her, replaced by the look you’d give a scuff on an expensive shoe.
Then the smile snaps back into place, bright and empty.
“Close enough, sweetheart,” she says, and the sweetness in her voice curdles the second it points down at my daughter.
That’s the part that gets me. Not the dig at me, I’ve weathered five years of digs and I’ve got the calluses to prove it. But Sandy is four. And this woman just looked at my kid as if she was gum on her shoe.
The reply I’d loaded dies in my throat, because Sandy is watching me now, waiting, and I will not do this in front of her. So I crouch to her level instead and tuck the answer where only she can hear the warmth in it.
“It’s just a grown-up joke, baby.” Then I straighten, and I let my eyes settle right on Therese, and I don’t bother softening what’s underneath. “Not a very good one. Some people never learn when a joke stops being funny.”
Her smile doesn’t move. But an expression behind it does.
Over the rim of her champagne, she keeps looking at me, and I look right back.
Neither of us bothers to pretend anymore. She holds that polished smile in place, about as warm as the silverware between us, and I don’t flinch, because if there’s one thing a fishing village teaches you, it’s how to stare down a storm you can’t outrun.
Then arms wrap around me from behind, and a kiss lands on my bare shoulder.
“Finally escaped,” Sebastian says into my skin, and he actually sounds relieved. “One more minute of port tariffs and I’d have jumped overboard.”
And just like that, some of the fight goes out of me, traitor that I am. He has no clue. He’s standing here with his mouth against my shoulder as if we’ve got the whole ship to ourselves, no idea he’s parked himself right in the middle of a knife fight he can’t see.
Therese’s expression hardens for a breath, and I catch it, the real thing under the party face. Then he starts to lift his head, and she smooths it all over before he can see, the warmth clicking back into place as though she flipped a switch.
His arms don’t move, but I feel him go still when he spots her.
“I see you two have met.” He glances between us, then does the thing he thinks will help. “Therese, my wife, Margo. Margo, Therese.”
As if we need the introduction. As if the last five minutes didn’t happen.
“We’ve had the loveliest chat.” Therese lifts her glass a fraction, all graciousness now that there’s an audience she wants to keep. “Your wife is charming, Sebastian. Truly.”
Then she turns her body just enough, a small shift of the shoulders, and somehow I’m on the outside of a conversation I was standing in the center of a second ago.
“It’s been too long,” she says, and her whole voice changes when it’s pointed at him. Warmer, private. “We have so much to catch up on. Do you remember that summer in Capri? When you talked your father into letting us take the yacht out alone and we very nearly put it on the rocks?”