Chapter 27 Abbie
ABBIE
The Beverly Wilshire ballroom looks nothing like it did a year and a half ago. Halo’s logo fills the far wall. I stand in the entrance with my hand on my belly and watch our guests gather beneath the chandeliers.
My album launch. My event. My redemption, and not a single person in this room paid for it except the clients who hired me because I'm good at what I do.
"You're doing it again," Wren says, appearing at my elbow with two glasses of sparkling water. "Staring at a room like you're memorizing it for a future therapy session."
"I'm savoring," I correct her, accepting one of the glasses. "There's a difference."
"There's really not." She takes a sip of her water, surveying the crowd with professional satisfaction. "But I'll allow it, because you look obscenely gorgeous and this party is going to be phenomenal and I'm pretty sure that waiter just checked out my ass."
"Which one?"
"The one by the shrimp tower. Don't look—" She grabs my arm as I start to turn. "God, you're the worst at this."
"I'm thirty weeks pregnant. I'm not subtle about anything anymore.
" I smooth my hand over the red silk that drapes elegantly over my belly, the dress Wren helped me choose specifically because it doesn't hide anything.
"I knocked over a display of oranges at the grocery store yesterday just by existing near them. "
"Did you cry?"
"For twenty minutes in the parking lot."
"That tracks." She links her arm through mine, careful not to jostle my champagne flute of sparkling water. "Where's your devastatingly handsome husband? He was supposed to meet us here ten minutes ago."
"Parking. He refused to do valet because he's convinced the valets judge him for the car seat in the back of the Range Rover."
"Do they?"
"Absolutely. He looks like a drug dealer who accidentally knocked someone up."
Wren snorts into her water. "I mean, he kind of did. The second part, not the drugs."
"The drugs were prescription," I say, deadpan. "Fertility supplements."
"Oh my God, were they actually—"
"No. We just had sex. I'm messing with you."
She shoves my shoulder gently. "You're the worst pregnant person I've ever met. You're supposed to be glowing and serene, not funnier than usual."
"I'm plenty serene. I took a three-hour nap today." I scan the room, catching sight of Elliot near the stage, deep in conversation with his wife Az. "He looks nervous."
"He's been nervous for a week. Az says he keeps practicing his set in the shower at two in the morning." Wren tilts her head, studying the couple. "It's cute in a 'please get some sleep before you collapse' kind of way."
"The album's good," I say. We've been working on the launch campaign since the night the album cycle went live. Every piece of it has my fingerprints on it. Mine and Wren's. "He has nothing to worry about."
"Except the part where he has to perform in front of a room full of people close enough to see his hands shake."
"Minor detail."
I turn toward the entrance. Gray’s light blue eyes find me across the room. His expression shifts. His lips part. His gaze moves down the red silk, then back to my face.
Wren's phone buzzes in her hand. She reads it, snorts, and tilts the screen toward me. "The group chat has convened. Unanimous ruling: that dress is a war crime, and your husband is the first casualty."
"Jesus," Wren mutters beside me. "Get a room."
"I have an apartment. He has a canyon. We manage."
"Then go manage somewhere else. You're making the rest of us feel inadequate." She pats my arm. "I'm going to go check on the AV setup. Try not to make out against any walls before the speeches start."
Security has photographs of my mother and sister and explicit instructions to turn them away. Wren checked the guest list with the venue twice. For once, I let myself believe the precautions are enough.
Wren disappears into the crowd as Gray crosses toward me, smiling.
"You're late," I say when he's near enough to hear me.
"I'm fashionably delayed." He stops in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to meet his eyes. "You look—"
"Huge?"
"Stunning." His hand finds my hip, thumb tracing a small circle through the silk. "Radiant. Unbelievably sexy."
"I look like I swallowed a basketball."
"A very attractive basketball." He leans down to kiss my cheek, his breath warm against my skin. "This room looks different than I remember."
The last time we were here, he let her keep the microphone.
"It does," I agree quietly. "Better lighting."
"Much better lighting." His hand slides from my hip to the small of my back, a steady pressure that grounds me. "How are you feeling? Any contractions?"
"Gray, I'm thirty weeks. I'm not going to give birth at my own launch party."
"You might. You're very determined when you want something."
"That's not how pregnancy works."
"Are you sure?"
I laugh despite myself. "Reasonably sure. My obstetrician didn't mention anything about manifestation affecting gestational timelines."
"She might have forgotten." He steers me gently toward our reserved table near the front of the room, pulling out my chair with exaggerated ceremony. "Do you want me to get you a plate from the appetizer station? I saw miniature quiches."
"I want seventeen of them."
"I'll get eighteen. One for the baby."
"The baby is inside me. She doesn't need her own quiche."
"She might." He kisses the top of my head before heading toward the food, and I watch him go.
"Thank you all for being here," I say into the mic, and my voice comes out steady, which feels like its own small miracle. I introduce Elliot and return to our table.
Elliot steps to the microphone and I swear his hands are shaking so hard I can see it from here.
Az catches my eye from across the room and mouths oh god and I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing because we’ve spent months coaxing him into performing these new songs without his usual band.
Stadiums are familiar. A room close enough to see every face is a different kind of exposure.
But then he opens his mouth. The first note hits and the room goes completely still. His voice is raw, aching, and I find myself gripping Gray's arm without meaning to.
"Told you," Gray murmurs against my ear.
"Shut up, I'm having a moment."
He laughs softly, his hand settling on my lower back, and I let myself lean into him just slightly. Elliot moves through his first song, then his second, and by the third I'm not even pretending I don't have tears in my eyes. This is what I built. He's up there singing, and they're listening.
When he finishes, the applause is thunderous.
Elliot looks genuinely shocked, like he can't quite believe it's for him, and Az is already pushing through the crowd to get to him.
Wren takes the stage, sleek and professional, and gives her brief introduction about Halo's mission, about discovering voices that deserve to be heard.
Then she's calling me back to the stage.
"And now I'd like to bring up the woman who made all of this possible, our founder, Abbie Montgomery."
Gray squeezes my hand. "Go get 'em."
I make my way to the stage, one hand on my belly, the other gathering my dress so I don't trip on the three short steps. The lights are warm on my face.
"A year and a half ago, I started Halo Creative in two rooms above a taqueria. Tonight, I want to thank our team and everyone who helped bring this album to—"
Movement at the back of the room catches my eye. Two figures slip through the catering entrance behind a rolling rack, one of them stumbling slightly. A server wheels after them, signaling the door guard, who has been helping clear a jammed cart. No. No.
My mother's silver hair catches the light first, then Delaney's face comes into focus, flushed, wine glass already in hand, mouth twisted into something ugly. I keep talking. If I stop, this becomes about them and I refuse to give them that.
"and Elliot represents everything we believe in at Halo. An artist who—"
"Family emergency!" Delaney's voice cuts across the room, too loud, slurring at the edges. "Had to see my sister!"
I watch Wren's head snap toward security, watch her gesture sharply. Two guards start moving but startled guests back into their path as my sister cuts between the tables, and Delaney is already pushing forward.
"As I was saying," I continue, gripping the microphone, "Elliot's album is what we're here to celebrate, and I couldn't be more—"
"Did you know?" Delaney shouts. She's closer now, maybe thirty feet away, and she's waving that wine glass like something she might throw. "Did you know Theo filed for primary custody this morning? This morning, Abbie. While you were getting your hair done for your little party."
The crowd is murmuring now, heads turning, and I feel the night slipping through my fingers.
"I'd also like to thank Az, who believed in this vision from day one—"
"She doesn't even care!" Delaney laughs, high and brittle. "She never cared about anyone but herself. You all think she's so impressive? Daddy paid for every bit of this. Richard Montgomery funded his precious favorite daughter's vanity project and—"
"That's a lie." My voice comes out sharp, cutting through her rambling. "I built Halo with my own money. Every cent. "
Gray's voice rises from near the stage, loud enough to carry: "Delaney, you need to leave. Now."
She spins toward him, sneering. "Oh, the devoted husband. Finally picked a side?"
"I picked my wife. Security is coming. Don't make this worse."
Constance grabs for Delaney's arm, trying to pull her back. "Delaney, please, this isn't—"
"Don't touch me." Delaney wrenches free and she's moving fast now, too fast, covering the distance to the stage in seconds. She hits the first step, the second, the third, and then she's in front of me reaching for the microphone.
"Delaney, stop—"
She yanks it from my grip.
"You trapped him with a pregnancy. He's still paying me for my baby. You got him," she says, and her voice breaks on the words, all that brittle anger cracking into something rawer underneath. "You got everything. The husband, the company, the baby, you got everything and I have nothing."
"Theo pays support, not me," Gray says, already moving toward the steps. "You know that."
The wine hits my face before I even see her arm move. Cold and sharp, splashing across my cheek, dripping down onto the red silk of my dress. The room gasps. Someone actually screams.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand, feel the mascara smearing, taste wine on my lips. Delaney is staring at me with something like triumph.
"At least now the tackiness is on the outside," I say.
A shocked laugh ripples through the crowd, startled, disbelieving, and Delaney's face twists.
She lunges forward and I step back instinctively, forgetting the stairs behind me.
My heel catches on the edge of the top step, the one I just climbed without thinking, and for a fraction of a second I'm suspended, unbalanced, reaching for something to grab, my center of gravity all wrong from the weight I'm carrying in my belly. I hear Gray shouting my name.
I see him pushing past the guests who backed into his path, reaching for me as security closes in from the other side. His hand misses mine, and now there is nothing between me and the fall except air. I hit the second step with my shoulder. My hip catches the edge of the third.
My head connects with something, the floor, maybe, or the base of a nearby table, and the world goes white with pain, then gray, then narrowing into a dark tunnel that I'm sliding down despite every desperate attempt to hold on.
My hand finds my belly. Thirty weeks. She's thirty weeks.
She can survive at thirty weeks, babies survive all the time at thirty weeks...
"Not like this," I whisper.
Then there's nothing at all.