Prologue #2
The table goes quiet. The Sterling faces around it turn toward me, expressions ranging from curious to suspicious.
Here goes nothing.
“As most of you know, our fifth anniversary is a week and a half away.” I keep my voice light. Bright. In control, or close enough to sell it to a room. “And Dorian and I have been talking, and we’ve decided-” A breath. A smile. “We’ve decided to renew our vows.”
Murmurs ripple through the room. A few genuine smiles. A few raised eyebrows.
“We’re thinking something intimate,” I continue. “Just family and close friends. A chance to celebrate how far we’ve come and-” My throat tightens unexpectedly. “And remember why we chose each other.”
Please let this work. Please let this mean something. Please let him look at me the way he used to, just once, just-
“How romantic!” Cordelia’s aunt clasps her hands together. “A renewal! After five years!”
“Five years already,” one of the uncles muses. “Time flies.”
“The ceremony will be at the Beaumont,” I add, gaining confidence. “The grand ballroom. I’ve been working with the events team on the design, and I really think it’s going to be something special. A fresh start.” I squeeze Dorian’s hand. “For both of us.”
The table erupts in polite congratulations.
Someone raises a glass. Someone asks about the color scheme.
And for thirty seconds, I let myself believe that this is real.
That throwing a beautiful party can fix a marriage that’s gone quiet in ways I can’t name.
That love can be redone the way you redo a hotel lobby, just strip it down, redesign it, make it pretty again.
Then Sebastian speaks.
“A party.”
Two words. That’s all it takes to slice through my hope.
I turn to look at him. He swirls his wine, lazy and bored. Dorian has never had to work for a single thing in his life, never had to beg for scraps of affection from someone who promised to love him.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s your plan?” He sets the glass down, and his eyes meet mine. Cold. Assessing. “Throw a party and hope it fixes him?”
Fixes him.
Not fixes things. Not helps your marriage. Fixes him.
Like Dorian is the problem.
Like Sebastian knows something I don’t.
The room has gone silent. Everyone’s watching us, forks frozen, napkins clutched, the particular stillness of people who know they’re witnessing something they shouldn’t.
I smile.
It doesn’t reach my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say sweetly, “are you giving marriage advice now? You?” I lean forward slightly, and something reckless sparks in my chest. “The man who picked me out of a lineup the way you pick a rental car and handed me to your brother as a signing bonus?”
Someone gasps. Cordelia’s wine glass hits the table harder than necessary.
Sebastian’s expression doesn’t change, but his eyes sharpen. A flicker of reassessment, there and gone.
“I did what the family needed,” he says.
“You did what was easy.” The words come out sharper than I intended.
Five years of resentment I didn’t know I was carrying, suddenly spilling over.
“You needed a clean reputation after Celeste torched yours, so you went shopping for a replacement sister. Didn’t matter who I was or what I wanted, I was just the spare Hartley. The one without a scandal attached.”
“Noelle-” Dorian’s hand tightens on mine, warning.
“No, let her finish.” Sebastian’s voice is dangerously soft. “If she has something to say, she should say it.”
“I just did.”
We lock eyes across the table. The hatred between us is old and familiar, a groove worn deep from years of being on opposite sides of a war neither of us started.
He looks away first.
Cordelia clears her throat.
“Well.” Her voice is light in that way that means danger is coming. The particular tone she uses before she draws blood. “This is all very... dramatic.”
She dabs her napkin against her lips, taking her time. Letting the tension build. Everyone at the table knows better than to speak before she’s finished.
“Noelle, dear.” Her eyes find mine, and there’s something cruel glittering in them. “Speaking of the Hartley family, have you heard from the other one lately?”
The room goes cold.
The other one.
She means Celeste. She means my twin sister, whose name no one in this family says out loud, whose scandal is the reason I’m sitting at this table in the first place.
Celeste, who imploded so spectacularly that the Sterlings needed someone to scrub their reputation clean, and found me waiting in the wings, the good twin, the boring twin, the twin who could be trusted not to make headlines.
Cordelia knows exactly what she’s doing. Bringing up Celeste here, in front of everyone, at a dinner meant to celebrate my marriage. It’s a reminder. We bought you to replace her. Don’t forget who you belong to.
The guests have gone still. The cousins exchange glances. Even Sebastian looks uncomfortable, which is almost satisfying, almost, except that I’m the one bleeding.
“No.” My voice comes out steady. Flat. “I haven’t heard from her.”
“Not at all? Not even a birthday card?”
“We don’t... we’re not in touch.”
“Mmm.” Cordelia tilts her head, faux sympathy dripping from every pore. “That must be difficult. Being estranged from your own twin. I can’t imagine.”
You can’t imagine because you’ve never loved anyone enough to be hurt by them.
But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything. I just sit there with my hands folded in my lap and my smile frozen in place while the table watches me like I’m an animal in a zoo.
“It’s complicated,” I finally manage. “Family stuff. You know how it is.”
“I certainly do.” Cordelia returns to her wine, satisfied. The point has been made. The wound has been opened. “Let’s hope she doesn’t decide to resurface for your little party, hmm? That would be quite the scene.”
A few nervous laughs scatter around the table.
And I think about Celeste, really think about her, for the first time in months. My mirror image. My other half. The sister who used to finish my sentences and steal my clothes and know what I was thinking before I thought it.
The sister who looked me in the eye at eighteen and said, I’m going to take everything you love, just to see if I can.
She meant it.
She always meant it.
Dinner ends eventually. The guests filter out with air kisses and promises to call. I clear plates and wrap leftovers and pretend I’m fine, and by the time the apartment is empty, my face hurts from smiling.
I’m gathering dishes from the dining room when I hear Dorian’s phone buzz on the kitchen counter.
“Babe, can you grab that?” he calls from the living room, arms full of serving platters. “Just silence it for me.”
I reach for it automatically. Just going to flip it over, mute the vibration, keep the evening running smooth.
But the screen lights up before I can touch it.
A photo. A little boy, mid-laugh, caught in some moment of pure joy. Dark hair. Bright eyes. A smile that’s-
My heart stops.
A smile that’s Dorian’s. Exactly Dorian’s. The same crooked lift at the corner, the same dimple in the left cheek, the same-
Dorian’s hand closes over mine.
“I’ll take that.”
He plucks the phone away so fast I barely register the movement. By the time I look up, the screen is dark and he’s already pocketing it, already smiling, already asking if I want him to call the car for his mother.
“Who was that?” My voice sounds far away. “The, the little boy?”
“What little boy?”
“On your phone. Just now. The picture.”
Dorian frowns. “I didn’t see any picture. It was probably a spam notification. You know how those apps are.” He kisses my forehead. “You’re exhausted, babe. Let’s get the rest of the guests out of here so you can rest.”
And then he’s gone, steering Cordelia toward the elevator, and I’m standing in my own kitchen holding nothing but the ghost of an image I’m already being told I imagined.
A little boy with my husband’s smile.
A little boy I’ve never seen before.
You’re doing the thing again.
I’m not. I’m not doing the thing.
But the thing, I’m starting to realize, might be the only thing keeping me sane.