14. Theo #2
“He never could see what was right in front of him.”
“No.” Her smile is knife-sharp. “He couldn’t.”
***
I lose Nora for ten minutes, and when I find her again, my blood goes cold.
Brielle has her cornered by the terrace doors.
They’re too far to hear and perfectly positioned to read - Brielle’s back to the room, shoulders squared, one hand gripping her clutch like a weapon; Nora against the glass with the whole black garden behind her, chin up, giving away nothing.
To the rest of the room it looks like a hostess and a nanny discussing a child’s bedtime.
To me it looks like two knives deciding.
Brielle leans in. Says something short and hard. I’m already moving, cutting through the crowd with my jaw set-
-and Nora smiles.
I stop dead between a senator’s wife and a champagne tower, because I know that smile. That’s the trial-and-verdict smile. That’s the smile that means someone has just made a serious miscalculation.
Brielle’s shoulders go rigid. She says something else - faster now, her free hand slicing the air. Nora replies with three words, maybe four, unhurried, and tilts her head with the terrible patience of a woman who has already read the last page of this story.
Whatever the words are, they land like a dropped glass.
Brielle actually steps back. Physically, visibly, in front of anyone who’s watching, she steps back from the nanny, and then catches herself, spins, and cuts across the ballroom toward the bar with her face arranged in a smile that fits her like a borrowed coat.
I reach Nora a moment later. “What did she say to you?”
“That whatever I’m planning, tonight is not the night.” Nora takes a glass from a passing tray, and her hand is perfectly steady, and that steadiness frightens me more than shaking would.
“And what did you say?”
She takes a slow sip, watching Brielle’s retreating back over the rim.
“That tonight is exactly the night.”
This woman, I think, somewhere between terror and worship. This woman buried herself for two years and came back as a loaded gun, and God help me, I would follow her into any fire in this city.
“Theo.” Her voice drops. Her eyes are still on the room. “Whatever happens in the next hour - don’t swing first.”
“Why would anyone swing-”
The punch comes at ten o’clock.
Adrian has been drinking since we arrived, and whatever Brielle said to him after the midnight visit has pushed him past his breaking point.
He’s been watching Nora all night - the same way he watched her at that first dinner party, that desperate, confused attention that she deserves from a better man.
I see him start toward us. See the tension in his shoulders, the set of his mouth. I move Nora behind me and brace for impact.
“You son of a bitch.”
Adrian’s fist connects with my jaw.
The room goes silent. I taste blood. Around us, the whole room holds its breath.
“Adrian-” Brielle is trying to pull him back. “Not here. Not like this.”
“Don’t touch me.” He shakes her off. “Don’t you dare - after what you told me-”
“I told you to be careful around her! That’s ALL I said!”
“You told me enough!” He’s screaming now, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You told me she knows. You told me someone knows, and now this - this woman-”
“What woman?” I spit blood onto the marble floor. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“You know what you’re doing. Parading her around like - like-”
“Like what, Adrian?” Nora steps out from behind me. Her voice is calm. Steady. Devastating. “Like a woman who deserves to be seen? Like someone who isn’t hiding?”
Adrian stares at her. His whole body has gone rigid.
“Who are you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.” He moves toward her, and I step between them again. “Yes, it matters. Because something about you - something I can’t-”
“Adrian.” Brielle grabs his arm. “Stop. You’re making a scene.”
“I don’t give a shit about the scene!” He spins on her. “I care about - I care about-”
“About what?” Brielle’s voice rises to match his. “About her? About some stranger you can’t stop staring at? Just like you couldn’t stop staring at the last one-”
“Don’t.”
“The nanny. Your dead wife. Everyone except me-”
“I said don’t!”
They’re screaming at each other now. A ballroom of people watching Adrian Walker’s marriage detonate in real time. I pull Nora back, away from the blast radius, but she’s not watching the fight.
She’s watching Adrian.
Waiting for something.
He turns back to her mid-sentence, his whole body trembling. His face has gone pale, sweat beading at his temples, and his hands keep clenching and unclenching at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
“Have we met?” The question cracks in the middle, barely holding together. He takes a step toward Nora, then stops himself, his shoes scraping against the marble. “Before you - before you started working-”
“Mr. Walker.” Nora’s voice is gentle. Almost pitying. She tilts her head slightly, studying him the way you’d study a wounded animal. “You don’t even know why you’re angry.”
I hear myself speak before I realize I’m going to.
“Go home, Adrian.” I step between them and reach out to straighten his collar, my hands steady even though my heart is pounding against my ribs. The silk is damp under my fingers. He’s sweating through his shirt. “Before you say something you can’t take back.”
He looks at me. His eyes are bloodshot, wild. Then at Nora, who hasn’t moved, who stands perfectly still with her hands clasped in front of her. Then at Brielle, still seething beside him with her fists clenched so tight her knuckles have gone white.
“This isn’t over,” he says. His voice comes out hoarse. He points a shaking finger at Nora, then drops his hand like it weighs too much to hold up.
“No.” Nora meets his gaze without flinching. A small smile plays at the corner of her mouth. “It isn’t.”
They start for the doors. Together but not together.
Adrian shoves through the crowd without apology, his shoulder catching a waiter’s tray and sending glasses wobbling.
Brielle walks two steps behind, her heels clicking sharp against the marble, her hand reaching for his arm and missing. Adrian doesn’t look back.
The party resumes around us. Whispers spread like ripples, heads leaning close, hands covering mouths. Sidelong glances dart our way. The delicious thrill of watching other people’s lives fall apart in public hums through the room like electricity.
Nora takes my arm, her fingers warm through my sleeve. She squeezes once, light and reassuring.
“Let’s get a drink.”
“Are you okay?” I cover her hand with mine, searching her face for cracks.
“I’m better than okay.” She smiles, and there’s something ancient in it. Patient. A woman who has learned to wait, who has turned waiting into a weapon. “He’s starting to feel it. The truth, working its way up through all the lies. Soon he won’t be able to ignore it anymore.”
“And when he can’t?” I lean closer, lowering my voice beneath the renewed chatter around us.
“Then I ask him the question I’ve been waiting two years to ask.” She holds my gaze for a long moment, something fierce burning behind her eyes.
She reaches for a champagne flute from a passing tray, her movements casual and unhurried. The glass catches the chandelier light as she raises it to her lips and takes a slow sip.
Behind her, I see Adrian pause at the ballroom exit. His hand grips the doorframe, knuckles white against the gilded wood. His shoulders are tense, hunched, like a man bracing for a blow.
He’s looking back at her. His mouth opens slightly, forms a word he doesn’t speak.
And his face is the face of a man who has just realized that the ghost he’s been running from has finally caught up.