23. Sabrina
— ? —
Sabrina
The white tents glowed in the twilight, and the whole island seemed to have turned out in their summer finest.
The annual party was one of those Nantucket institutions that had been happening for so long nobody remembered how it started.
Families who’d been summering here for generations mingled with newer arrivals, champagne flowed freely, roses scented everything, and a tasteful jazz trio played under the tents.
I’d been feeling stronger lately, strong enough to venture out in a pretty dress and pretend I was a normal person attending a normal social function.
Killian stayed close but not suffocating, his hand finding the small of my back whenever we moved through the crowd, a steady anchor in the sea of small talk.
Ivy was at Bridget and Alistair’s for the night, and the freedom of an adult evening out felt almost decadent.
“You look beautiful,” Killian said, leaning close to my ear.
“You’ve told me that approximately twelve times tonight.”
“Because it’s true approximately infinite times.”
“That’s not how math works.”
“I’m an engineer. I can make math do whatever I need it to.”
I laughed and took a sip of my sparkling water. The pregnancy had eliminated alcohol from my life, which was fine because it had also eliminated my tolerance for small talk. At least now I had an excuse.
We made the rounds, chatting with his parents and various family friends, accepting congratulations from people who’d heard about the pregnancy through the island’s remarkably efficient gossip network.
Bridget looked ready to take personal credit for the entire pregnancy, and Alistair gave me one of his rare genuine smiles.
Then I saw her.
Cordelia was standing near the bar, dressed in something black and shimmering that clung to every curve. She was holding a champagne flute and talking to a man I didn’t recognize, but her eyes found mine across the party and locked on.
She smiled.
I froze.
“Sabrina?” Killian’s voice came from somewhere far away. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t answer. I was back in my foyer, staring at Cordelia in her red dress, listening to her lies about Killian inviting her over, feeling the first wave of dizziness before everything went dark.
“Hey.” Killian was in front of me now, his hands on my shoulders. “Talk to me. What happened?”
“Cordelia,” I managed. “She’s here.”
His expression hardened. “Where?”
“By the bar. Don’t-”
But he was already turning, his eyes scanning the crowd until they found her. His jaw tightened.
“Tessa,” he said, and suddenly his sister was there, appearing out of nowhere with a glass of wine in hand.
“What’s going on?”
“We have a situation.”
Tessa followed his gaze to Cordelia and her expression went cold. “What did that bitch do now?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” He turned back to me. “Sabrina. What happened? Did she say something to you?”
I couldn’t keep hiding it. I’d kept it secret for too long, trying to protect myself or punish him or something in between, and it was time for the truth.
“The night I collapsed,” I said. “The night I ended up in the hospital. She was there. At the house.”
Killian went very still.
“She came to the door in a red dress with champagne. She said you’d invited her, that you knew she was coming, that you had something important to discuss.
” My voice was steady, but my hands were shaking.
“I told her you weren’t there and she was lying.
We argued. She said… horrible things. And then she left, and I went back inside, and everything went dark. ”
Tessa made a sound of outrage. “That absolute psychopath. She showed up at your house while you were pregnant and alone with Ivy?”
“She didn’t know I was pregnant. Only your mother and Tessa did, and Killian didn’t.”
“That doesn’t matter. She came to your home and harassed you and then you collapsed. She could have killed you. She could have killed the baby.”
“What’s happening?” Bridget’s voice cut through the crowd. She’d appeared with Alistair, drawn by the commotion. “Killian, why do you look like you’re about to commit murder?”
“Cordelia,” Tessa said grimly. “She showed up at Sabrina’s door the night she fainted. With champagne. Claiming Killian had invited her for a date.”
I had never seen Bridget Kerrington lose her composure. I’d seen her handle crises with graceful efficiency, manage difficult social situations with a smile that never wavered, and put billionaires in their place with a single raised eyebrow.
But now her face went into a maternal rage I had never once seen on her.
“She did what?”
“Mom-” Killian started.
“Where is she?”
“By the bar, but-”
Bridget was already moving.
“Oh shit,” Sully muttered, appearing at my elbow. “Mom’s going nuclear.”
We all followed, a family procession cutting through the party with Bridget at the head. People stepped out of our way, sensing the energy, conversations faltering as we passed.
Cordelia saw us coming. Her smile faltered, then reasserted itself, less confident now.
“Bridget,” she said smoothly. “What a lovely party. I was just telling-”
“Don’t.” Bridget’s voice could have frozen champagne. “Don’t say another word.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Bridget stepped closer, and Cordelia actually stepped back.
“I know what you did. I know you showed up at my daughter-in-law’s home and harassed her while she was alone and pregnant.
I know you’ve been stalking my son and trying to destroy his marriage.
And I know that you’re a pathetic, jealous woman who can’t accept that he chose someone else. ”
Cordelia’s face went red. “I don’t know what she’s told you, but-”
“She didn’t have to tell me anything. I have eyes. I’ve watched you insert yourself into every event, manufacture coincidences to run into Killian, spread rumors about their marriage to anyone who would listen. Did you think no one noticed?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You showed up at her door with champagne claiming my son had invited you. That’s harassment at best and stalking at worst.”
“I was just trying to-”
“I don’t care what you were trying to do.” Bridget’s voice rose, carrying across the tent. People were staring now, conversations dying, phones discreetly appearing. “You’re not welcome in my family’s life. You’re not welcome at my son’s home. And you’re not welcome on this island.”
“You can’t ban me from an entire island.”
“Watch me.”
Killian stepped forward, and for the first time I saw real fear flash across Cordelia’s face.
“I’m going to be very clear,” he said, his voice low and controlled and somehow more terrifying than yelling.
“There is nothing between us. There hasn’t been for years.
There never will be again. The only woman I want is Sabrina.
She’s my wife, the mother of my child, and the love of my life.
If you come near her again, if you so much as look at her wrong, I will use every resource at my disposal to make your life a living hell.
And you know I have the resources to do it. ”
Cordelia opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” said a new voice. It was Adelaide Winthrop, silver-haired and unbothered, whose family had been throwing this party since before any of us were born, and whose approval was the only currency Cordelia had ever actually wanted. “And not just tonight.”
“You can’t possibly mean that.”
“Completely serious. Your invitation to the Labor Day gala is withdrawn, and I’ll be having a word with the club membership committee on Monday.
You understand how these things go on an island this size, Cordelia.
One conversation over bridge, and doors simply stop opening.
” She smiled, gracious and lethal. “I’ll have someone walk you to your car. ”
Two staff members materialized, politely implacable.
Cordelia looked around the tent for a single ally, one face that would meet her eyes, and found none.
The people whose circle she’d spent all summer trying to buy her way into had already turned back to their drinks, closing over the space where she’d stood as if she’d never been there at all.
That, more than anything Bridget or Killian had said, was the thing that broke her composure.
She left without the venomous look I’d braced for.
She just left, smaller than she’d arrived.
I watched her disappear through the tent flap, and the tension that had been holding me rigid finally released.
“I’m sorry,” Bridget said, turning to me. “I’m sorry we didn’t deal with her sooner. I should have realized how bad it had gotten.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have known. I should have been paying more attention.” She pulled me into a fierce hug. “Nobody speaks to one of mine like that. Not in my house, not at my party, not on this island.”
I hugged her back, and for a moment I let myself feel the full weight of what had just happened. These people had stood up for me. They’d formed a wall around me and faced down my tormentor and made it clear that I belonged to them.
I’d never felt so backed up in my life. Not because I was Killian’s wife, not because I was Ivy’s mother, but because I was Sabrina. Because I was family.
The party resumed around us, conversations starting again, the jazz picking back up, normal life asserting itself. But I stood in the middle of it all, and the last of my armor came loose.
I wasn’t alone anymore. Maybe I never had been.
“Dance with me?”
I looked up. Killian was holding out his hand, his expression soft in a way that caught me under the ribs.
“I don’t think I can handle anything fast.”
“Slow,” he said. “Very slow.”
The band had shifted to a ballad, something romantic and slightly old-fashioned, a song that made you want to hold someone close and never let go. Killian led me to a quiet corner of the dance floor and pulled me into his arms, and we swayed together in the gentle rhythm.
His hand was warm on the small of my back. My head fit perfectly against his shoulder. We’d danced together hundreds of times over the years, at weddings and galas and in our kitchen at midnight, but this felt different. This was a beginning.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “For all of it. For not being there the night she came to the house. For every part of this summer where you had to hold the door by yourself.”
“You were away.”
“I’ve been away for two years.” He said it without a scrap of self-pity, a flat statement of fact about himself. “That’s the part I’m apologizing for.”
“You’re here now.”
“And I intend to keep being here. That is the entire plan. It’s a very boring plan.”
We danced in silence for a moment. The music swelled around us, strings and piano weaving together, achingly beautiful. I let my eyes close and focused on the feeling of his arms around me, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my cheek.
“There’s no one on earth I love more than you,” he said softly, his lips brushing against my hair.
“No one I want more. No one I’d rather spend my life with.
I know I spent two years making it hard to believe.
I know I let you down in ways that I can never fully make up for.
But it’s true. It’s always been true, from the very first moment I saw you. ”
A tear slid down my cheek. I didn’t bother wiping it away.
“There’s no one else for me either,” I said. “There never has been. It’s only ever been you, Killian. Even when I was furious with you, even when I thought our marriage was over, it was still you. It’s always been you.”
His arms tightened around me, pulling me closer until there was no space between us at all. We held each other on the dance floor while the music played and the party swirled around us, two people finding their way back to each other after a long and painful journey.
I didn’t know if we could rebuild everything we’d broken. But his heartbeat was steady under my cheek and his arms didn’t loosen, and for the length of one song I let myself stop bracing for the fall.