The Other Woman in His Kingdom (Groveling, Angst & Second Chances #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

CHLOE

The first thing Janine Austen says to me at the soft opening of Starlight Court isn't hello. It's, “Chloe, darling, could you take one step to your left?”

I take one step to my left. A photographer in a black shirt and headset dips his camera. “Actually, Mrs. Austen, we’re losing you behind the column.”

For half a second, I think he means Janine. Then her hand closes lightly around my elbow, and I understand.

“Oh, we can’t have that,” Janine says, smiling like she’s saving me from an embarrassing lipstick smudge. “Chloe, why don’t you stand just there? Wonderful.”

"Just there" is behind a spray of silver-white roses arranged in a crystal vase nearly as tall as my shoulder. If I lean right, I can see the photographer. If I lean left, I can see my husband.

Sebastian stands beneath the moonlit archway at the entrance to Starlight Court, his dark suit cut perfectly to his body, his expression composed in that way people mistake for ease.

Camera flashes strike the clean lines of his face.

He looks like he belongs to the night around him, to the polished marble, to the banners embroidered with constellations, and to the huge new gates that have cost more money than I can comfortably think about.

He looks like the public prince of Austen Parks.

And beside him, where I'd been standing thirty seconds ago, Katrina Haviland turns her face toward the cameras and smiles.

The crowd reacts to her like she's brought the sky down with her bare hands. She's small, shining, and almost impossible to look away from, with glossy dark waves and diamond straps.

Katrina lifts her hand in a practiced wave, and the crowd screams. Sebastian glances toward her and smiles. My chest tightens.

It’s just a smile. I know my husband’s smiles.

I know the real ones, the ones that start reluctantly and then take over his face despite his best efforts.

This isn't that. This is media training and manners and four months of his mother telling everyone that Katrina Haviland is the perfect face for Starlight Court.

Still, she's standing where I was asked not to stand.

There are a thousand people here tonight, and somehow I've never felt easier to miss.

“Chloe,” Janine says, still smiling for the cameras. “Careful with the flowers.”

I look down. My hip has brushed one of the stems. A white rose trembles, then settles.

“Sorry,” I say.

“No harm done.” Her fingers tighten once on my elbow before she lets go. “We just want everything perfect tonight.”

I tell myself not to be dramatic. I tell myself a lot of things lately.

Starlight Court's Sebastian’s biggest project since taking majority control of Austen Parks.

It's a whole new world built inside the resort: velvet-dark paths lit by lanterns shaped like stars, glass bridges over black reflecting pools, and a castle theatre with a ceiling that mimics the night sky.

There are restaurants, boutiques, and live shows.

A luxury hotel wing is tucked behind the gardens for guests who want the fantasy without having to rejoin the rest of humanity before breakfast.

Sebastian's lived and breathed this place for over a year.

I've watched him come home with blueprints under his arm and exhaustion in the hard set of his mouth.

I've eaten dinners beside him while he checked projections between bites, and I've fallen asleep to the glow of his tablet more nights than I can count.

I've told myself, over and over, that this is a season. A hard, temporary season.

A season ends.

“Mrs. Austen,” another photographer calls. “Can we get family on the dais?”

I step out from behind the flowers before Janine can reposition me with the gentle force of a woman moving a vase. “Yes, of course,” I say.

Sebastian’s eyes find mine. For a moment, the noise shifts back. It doesn’t disappear, but it softens at the edges. He gives me a small look, one almost nobody else would recognize, and my body responds before my pride can stop it.

There he is. My Sebastian.

Not the boardroom man. Not the brand. Not Janine’s son, not Austen Parks’ favorite inheritance in a tailored suit.

Mine. The man who drinks coffee too late and pretends not to like old sitcoms until I catch him laughing.

The man who once stood in the rain outside my performer entrance because my car wouldn’t start and he didn’t want me waiting alone.

The man who looked at me in a cheap princess costume and saw a woman worth loving.

I move toward him, but Janine steps between us.

“Let’s have Katrina right here,” she says brightly. “She and Sebastian should be centered beneath the arch. Chloe, darling, come around to this side. Yes, just there.”

Just there is one step off the dais. Not beside him. Near him. There’s a difference, and it's one I feel in the soles of my feet.

Sebastian’s brow flickers. It's almost nothing, a crease, then gone. He turns his head toward his mother, but before he can speak, Katrina sweeps forward with a little laugh.

“Oh, Janine, you’re spoiling me,” she says.

“Nonsense,” Janine says. “You’re our star tonight.”

Our star. The cameras love that. I hear a few of them chuckle, and someone repeats it under their breath as if it'd make a good caption.

Sebastian looks at me again. I smile. It's an old reflex, a terrible one, maybe, the kind that makes everything easier for everyone except the person doing it. He relaxes a fraction. That small relaxation hurts more than it should.

The photographer lifts his camera. “Beautiful. Sebastian, Katrina, a little closer. Great. Mrs. Austen, chin up.”

Again, for one foolish second, I think he means me. Janine lifts her chin, and the flash goes off.

I stand at the edge of the dais while my husband, his mother, and the most adored pop princess in America are photographed beneath the gates of the kingdom he built. My face aches from smiling.

The press event moves like choreography, except nobody gave me the steps.

Janine knows them. Katrina knows them. Sebastian knows enough to follow the rhythm, even when I can see impatience working under his skin.

He hates pageantry when it wastes time, loves it when it serves the park, and tonight every glittering second is serving something.

I just don’t know if that something includes me.

There's a ribbon cutting in front of the moon garden. I'm handed the ceremonial scissors, but then Janine laughs softly. “Actually, why don’t we let Katrina do this one with Sebastian? The press'll eat it up.”

I pass the scissors to Katrina. Her fingers brush mine.

“Thank you, Chloe,” she says, warm enough that anyone listening would hear kindness. There's nobody listening closely enough to hear possession.

She turns to Sebastian and holds the scissors between them. Their hands overlap for the photograph. The ribbon is silver, and when it falls, the crowd erupts.

There's a toast on the terrace. I stand beside Sebastian for the first thirty seconds. Then a network host asks for “just the Austen leadership team and Starlight Court’s leading lady,” and Janine somehow interprets that to mean herself, Sebastian, and Katrina.

I'm given a champagne flute by a server who looks apologetic.

There's a walk-through for invited media. Janine touches my arm. “You don’t mind bringing up the donors at the back, do you? They’re fond of you.”

Fond of me. Like I'm a family dog with good manners.

I bring up the donors. They're perfectly lovely, asking polite questions about the court and whether I had any hand in the creative direction. I tell them Sebastian’s team worked incredibly hard.

It's true, but it's also not the whole truth.

There was a corner of Starlight Court once that I'd imagined differently.

A small interactive path for children, built around kindness and courage, where princesses, knights, and nervous little astronauts could solve problems together instead of waiting to be rescued.

I sketched it late one night at the kitchen island while Sebastian took a call in the next room.

When he came back, tired but smiling, he kissed my shoulder and told me to show him. So I did.

He listened. He really listened. He asked questions, touched the edge of one sketch, and said, “This feels like you.”

Then Janine saw the folder two days later.

“Sweet,” she said, in the same tone someone might use for a cupcake dropped on carpet. “But Starlight Court needs sophistication. We’re not building a preschool wing.”

Sebastian had been on another call by then, so I put the sketches away. I've gotten very good at putting things away.

The donors move ahead of me now, admiring the black reflecting pool where floating lights drift like fallen stars. Beyond them, Sebastian and Katrina pause beneath a balcony while cameras gather again.

Katrina tilts her head up toward him, and he bends slightly to hear her over the crowd. It's normal. It's practical. She's shorter than he is, and this place is loud. I tell myself that too. One more thing for the list.

A reporter steps backward into me and startles. “Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She glances at my face, then at my name badge. Her eyes widen. “Mrs. Austen. I’m so sorry.”

The apology lands wrong. Not because she bumped me, but because she recognizes me only after reading the badge. I tuck the lanyard behind my clutch. “No harm done,” I say, and she smiles with professional speed before turning away.

Ahead, Katrina laughs at something Sebastian says, then offers something in return. Sebastian laughs in response, a real, low sound that reaches me through the crush of people. It's been days since I've made him laugh like that. Maybe weeks.