6. Delphine
— ? —
Delphine
Blair’s car was warm and quiet, the heater blowing softly against my frozen cheeks. I sat in the passenger seat with my hands clenched in my lap, watching Newport blur past the window through a film of tears I couldn’t stop.
She hadn’t asked any questions when she picked me up.
She had just taken one look at my face, wrapped her arm around my shoulders, and guided me out through the service entrance where no one would see us, the gold box still clutched against my chest. Now she was driving, her eyes fixed on the road, giving me the space to fall apart.
I appreciated that more than I could say.
“Where are we going?” I finally managed, my voice thick and strange.
“My house.” Blair glanced over at me, her expression soft with concern. “Will is there, but I’ll send him out. You need somewhere safe to think.”
Safe. I wasn’t sure anywhere felt safe anymore. But I nodded and turned back to the window, watching the grand estates of Bellevue Avenue slide past in a blur of holiday lights and manicured hedges.
Blair’s house was smaller than Fairhaven, a graceful colonial tucked away on a side street, all white clapboard and black shutters and a red door that somehow managed to look cheerful even in December.
Will was in the foyer when we came in, a tall quiet man with kind eyes and the good sense not to ask questions when two women walked through his door looking like a disaster.
“I’ll be at the club,” he said, kissing Blair’s cheek. “Take your time.”
Then he was gone, and it was just the two of us standing in the warm front hall with the Christmas tree glittering softly in the corner.
“Come on.” Blair took my hand. “Let’s get you sitting down.”
She led me to the living room and settled me on the sofa with a blanket and a cup of tea that appeared so fast I barely registered her making it. Then she sat down across from me, her legs curled beneath her, and waited.
“I don’t know where to start,” I said.
“Start wherever you want. I’m not going anywhere.”
So I told her. Everything. The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other, barely coherent.
Montana’s arrival with Kendall in tow. The text message I had found on Heath’s phone.
The overheard conversation in the dining room.
The pregnancy test in the pharmacy bathroom.
Montana’s ambush in the kitchen, her cruel words about Heath and Kendall, her vicious suggestion that the baby might not even be his.
By the time I finished, I was crying again, the tears running hot and fast down my cheeks, and Blair’s face had gone pale with fury.
“That woman,” she said, her voice low and tight. “That horrible, vicious woman. I’ve always known Montana Fairchild was cruel, but this is beyond anything I imagined.”
“She said they’ve been together for months.” I pressed my hands against my eyes, trying to stop the tears. “She said they’re planning to move to Europe together. She said I was never supposed to be there in the first place, that I was just a temporary mistake.”
“Del.” Blair reached out and took my hands, pulling them away from my face. “Look at me.”
I looked. Her eyes were fierce and bright, full of an anger that matched my own.
“I’m going to say this once, and I need you to hear it. From the outside, from everything I’ve ever seen of you and Heath together, that man loves you. Loves you desperately, completely, in a way that’s obvious to everyone who’s ever been in a room with the two of you.”
I laughed, a bitter sound that scraped against my throat. “Then why has he been a stranger for three months? Why is he planning a future with another woman? Why does his mother know things about my marriage that I don’t know?”
“I don’t know.” Blair’s voice was gentle, honest. “I can’t explain what’s been happening between you.
But I can tell you that Montana is a liar and a manipulator who’s been trying to drive you out of that family since the day you walked in.
I can tell you that Kendall Saladino has always been obsessed with Heath and has never accepted that he chose someone else.
And I can tell you that whatever is going on, you deserve the truth.
Not Montana’s version of it. The real truth, from your husband’s own mouth. ”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can face him. I don’t know if I can stand there and listen to him tell me that everything Montana said was true.”
“You have to.” Blair squeezed my hands. “You have to go to that gala tonight and look him in the eye and demand answers. Not for Montana. Not for Kendall. For yourself. Because you deserve to know what you’re fighting for.”
She was right. I knew she was right. But the thought of walking into that ballroom, of facing all those people who had probably already heard some version of what happened in the kitchen, made me want to crawl under the blanket and never come out.
“I have a gift for him,” I said quietly. “For Heath. I was going to give it to him tonight, before Montana... before everything.”
“What kind of gift?”
“Baby booties.” My voice cracked on the words. “And the tests. Both of them. I wrapped them in a gold box with a white ribbon like an idiot. I was going to tell him about the pregnancy. I thought maybe it could put us back together.”
Blair’s expression softened. “Oh, Del.”
“I want him to see it.” A resolve was hardening in my chest now, cold and sharp and angry. “I want him to know exactly what he’s throwing away. Even if he doesn’t want me anymore, even if everything Montana said is true, I want him to understand what he had and what he lost.”
Blair studied my face for what felt like a very long time. Then she nodded.
“Then we’re going to get you ready for that gala. We’re going to make you look so stunning that every person in that room forgets to breathe when you walk in. And you’re going to give Heath Fairchild that gift and watch his face when he realizes what a fool he’s been.”
She stood up and held out her hand.
“Come on. I have a dress that’s going to change his life.”
The dress was red.
Not a polite Christmas red, not a safe burgundy or a respectable wine. This was red red. The color of blood and anger and a woman who had decided to stop being quiet about her pain. It fit me perfectly, hugging every curve, falling to the floor in a sweep of silk that whispered when I walked.
Blair did my makeup herself, covering the evidence of my tears, making my eyes look huge and dark and dangerous. She pinned my hair up in a style that was elegant and severe, nothing soft about it. When I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized myself.
Good. I didn’t want to be the woman I had been this morning. I wanted to be someone stronger. Someone who could walk into that ballroom and face whatever was waiting for her.
The gold box sat on Blair’s dresser. The paper gleamed in the lamplight. The ribbon curled in delicate spirals. Inside, the booties and the two tests waited to tell a truth I was no longer sure my husband deserved to hear.
I picked it up and held it against my chest.
“Ready?” Blair asked.
“No.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
***
We arrived at the gala late, the party already in full swing.
The Bellcliff Club sat lit up at the end of its own drive like a liner coming into harbor, every window blazing, and I could hear the music from the parking lot.
Forty years of Fairchild Christmases in that ballroom.
My name on the run sheet for four of them.
I could sense the crowd inside laughing and drinking and having no idea what was about to walk through the door.
Blair linked her arm through mine. “I’m right here. Whatever happens, I’m right here.”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up, and my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples.
We walked up the steps. We pushed through the door. And we stepped into the glittering chaos of the Fairchild Christmas Gala.
The room was everything I had planned and more.
The white flowers I had chosen spilled off every surface.
Silver candles flickering on every table.
A tree that touched the ceiling, covered in lights that cast soft shadows across the crowd.
I had spent months on this event, agonizing over every detail, and it was beautiful.
I barely noticed any of it.
Because Montana was standing directly in front of me, blocking my path, her silver gown shimmering under the chandeliers and her face twisted with fury.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed, pitching her voice low so the guests around us wouldn’t hear. “I thought I made myself perfectly clear this afternoon.”
“You made yourself clear.” I kept my voice steady, kept my chin up. “I just didn’t agree with you.”
“This is my family’s event. You have no right to be here.”
“I organized this event. I have every right.”
Montana’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re embarrassing yourself. You’re embarrassing this family. Turn around and leave before you make things worse.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I talk to my husband.”
A laugh cut through the tension, high and musical and cruel. I turned to find Kendall approaching, a glass of champagne in her hand, a smile playing at the corners of her perfectly painted lips.
“Oh, how sweet,” she said, her eyes traveling slowly over my dress. “She dressed up for the occasion. Did you borrow that from a friend, Delphine? It certainly doesn’t look like anything you could afford on your own.”
The anger surged up in me, hot and fierce. “It looks better on me than anything in your closet ever could.”
Kendall’s smile faltered for just a moment. Then it returned, sharper than before.
“Still pretending you belong here, I see. Still acting like you’re one of us.” Her gaze dropped to the gold box in my hands. “What’s that? A little goodbye present for Heath? How pathetic.”
“That’s none of your business.”