Chapter 1 #2
Blake looked away. The smallest betrayal, what comes before something bigger. He didn’t want Lily but he didn’t seem to mind that Lily wanted him. He seemed flattered by Lily and tired of Angela. It was as if Angela’s feelings her pain were inconvenient.
"She wants access," he said. "To the gallery, to clients, to this world. You're giving her more power in your head than she has."
Angela's laugh was small and bitter. "Women like Lily don't need power at first. They need permission."
"And you think I'm giving it to her?"
"I know you are."
His expression cooled. "I'm not doing this in front of half the city."
"Then stop letting her in, please.”
Blake took a drink. Too much of one. "I need air."
"Blake."
But he was already stepping away, his shoulders rigid, his face locked in that cold Hunter composure his father had probably taught him before he taught him kindness.
Angela stood under the soft gallery lights and watched her husband leave her opening. She didn’t follow. Pride kept her rooted to the spot the same way it had kept her quiet for months, that and the hope the Blake would see what Lily was trying to do and stop it.
Lily returned ten minutes later, her hands empty and her eyes careful.
"Where’s Blake?" Angela asked.
Lily touched her own throat, as though startled by the question. "I'm not sure."
"You were speaking with him."
"For a moment." Lily's voice lowered. "He seemed upset."
Angela stared at her.
Lily's expression warmed with false concern. "I know tonight is stressful. I didn't mean to make anything worse."
"Then stop standing so close to my husband."
The words came out colder than Angela intended. Lily's eyes widened. Around them, the room shimmered with champagne and whispers, but for one suspended second, there was only the truth between them.
Then Lily's mouth trembled.
"Of course," she said. "I'm sorry. It's just that Blake seemed like he needed someone who understood how much pressure this night put on him too."
Angela's body went cold. This was her opening, and her hard work, Somehow Lily had managed to make Blake the one who needed tending. Lily was her assistant yet she was only focused on Blake.
"You mean the night I planned," Angela said. "With the clients I brought in, with my reputation with my name on the door."
Lily's softness hardened at the edges. "I only meant marriage is hard when one person shines so brightly."
Angela saw it then. It was more than desire.
Resentment. Lily didn’t only want Blake's attention.
She wanted Angela lowered so she could stand taller.
Angela turned away before she could be made the villain in her own gallery.
For the next half hour, she performed flawlessly.
She discussed scale and light. She sold a painting to a woman who wanted to impress her new husband.
She posed for a photograph she would later hate.
She laughed in the right places and let everyone believe Blake's absence didn’t hurt.
A server approached thirty minutes later, young and nervous.
"Mrs. Hunter?"
"Yes?"
He held Blake's charcoal jacket over one arm. "Should I have this sent up to the penthouse? Ms. Saint said she was taking Mr. Hunter home, but I think she forgot his coat."
Angela heard every word with terrible clarity. The world didn’t stop. She almost wished it had. Something dramatic would’ve been easier than the cold, surgical precision of her own dread.
"Ms. Saint said what?"
The server shifted from one foot to the other. "I'm sorry. I only meant that she left after him. I thought she said she was making sure he got home. He seemed..." He swallowed. "He seemed like he'd had a lot to drink."
Angela took the coat.
"Thank you."
She walked through her gallery, past the white roses, past the sold paintings, past Connor King, who turned as though he felt the change in her before he saw it.
"Angela?" he called after her.
She didn’t answer. If she opened her mouth, all of her worst fears might spill out where everyone could see. She took her own coat from the attendant and left by the side entrance.
The ride to the penthouse took twenty -five minutes.
Angela counted each one in the back of the car, Blake's coat folded beside her. Rain lashed against the windows. Her phone sat dark in her lap. She didn’t call him.
She refused to be the wife calling her husband while another woman sat beside him, smiling at the screen.
The elevator opened directly into the penthouse foyer. The apartment was dim, lit only by the city beyond the windows and a lamp in the corner of the living room. Angela stepped inside, and the quiet felt wrong. It was ominous instead of peaceful. Her pulse began to pound in her ears.
"Blake?"
No answer.
She moved down the hallway, each step slower than the last. The bedroom door was open a few inches, spilling a strip of golden light onto the dark wood floor.
Angela pushed it open.
Blake lay on the bed, shirt off, in his boxers, one arm flung across the sheets. He was unconscious or close to it, his dark hair mussed, his face slack with drunken sleep.
Lily Saint sat beside him wearing Blake's wrinkled white shirt. Her legs were bare. Her hair had fallen from its pins. Her lipstick was smudged. The bed was rumpled around them. On the floor near the bench was Lily’s dress.
For a moment, Angela couldn’t speak. Her mind was refusing to process the scene before her eyes.
Then Lily looked up.
Her face crumpled with feigned horror. "Angela."
Angela stared at her.
Lily pulled the shirt tighter around herself, as if modesty mattered now. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "He didn't want you to find out this way."
Angela heard her clearly. She heard the satisfaction underneath the false apology.
She looked at Blake. Her husband. The man who had once stood with her in an empty gallery and promised that no matter how crowded the rooms became, he would always find her first.
He didn’t wake up.
He didn’t say her name.
He didn’t save her from what she was seeing.
Angela's hand moved to her ring.
Lily gave her a pained look. "Please. Let me explain."
Angela slid the ring from her finger. The diamond caught the lamplight one last time, cold and brilliant, before she placed it on the nightstand beside Blake's watch. Then she turned and walked out of the room. She didn’t look back.