Chapter 2

I left the broken glass where it fell.

“Miss Hart,” the woman with the napkin called sharply. “You need to clean this up.”

“No,” I said.

It was the first word I had spoken since my husband announced his engagement to another woman.

I stepped over the shattered crystal and followed Lucian through the doors behind the stage.

A member of security moved in front of me.

“This area is for the Montclair family.”

“I’m his wife.”

The words came out louder than I intended.

The guard stared at me.

Beyond his shoulder, Lucian stopped walking.

Seraphine’s hand was still tucked inside his arm.

“Let her through,” he said.

He led me into a private sitting room, then closed the door. Before he looked at me, he checked the narrow window beside it.

He was making sure no cameras could see us.

“Not here, Elowen.”

“Where, then?” I asked. “Upstairs? In the room where your staff won’t hear me ask why my husband just announced he was marrying someone else?”

Seraphine removed her gloves one finger at a time.

“This evening is important to the foundation. Perhaps we should all take a breath.”

I looked at Lucian.

“Did you know what was written in that speech?”

His silence answered first.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did you know they would call me your aide?”

“Elowen—”

“Did you know Seraphine would wear your family sapphire?”

His expression hardened.

“We can discuss this privately.”

“We are private. That seems to be the only place I’m allowed to exist.”

Seraphine lowered her eyes, but I saw the small curve at the corner of her mouth.

Lucian came closer.

“This announcement was necessary. My grandmother has spent months repairing the family’s position after the accident. Seraphine’s return reassures people that everything is as it was.”

“But it isn’t.”

“No,” he said quietly. “It’s better.”

For one foolish second, hope moved inside me.

Then he touched my wedding ring.

“Seraphine will be my fiancée publicly. You will remain my wife.”

I stared at him.

“You announced that you were going to marry her.”

“Publicly.”

“And what am I supposed to be?”

“My wife.” His voice softened, as if he were reassuring an unreasonable child. “Nothing between us has changed.”

Everything had changed.

He simply expected me to accept the part where it had changed for everyone but him.

Seraphine crossed to the mirror and adjusted the sapphire at her throat.

“Lucian’s eyes will be strained after so many photographs,” she said. “Elowen, would you put in his drops when he goes upstairs? You know how particular he is about them.”

Lucian did not tell her not to order me around.

“Leave them on the nightstand,” he said.

Three years of holding his face between my hands while medication burned his eyes had become another household task Seraphine could assign me.

I pulled away from him.

“Go back onto that stage.”

Lucian frowned. “What?”

“Tell them I’m your wife. Tell them who stayed with you. Tell them whose words you stole. Then cancel the engagement.”

Seraphine went still.

Lucian looked toward the ballroom doors.

“I can’t do that.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“There are four hundred guests out there. Reporters. Donors. If I reverse the announcement now, Seraphine will be publicly humiliated.”

The words struck with almost perfect clarity.

He could watch me kneel in broken glass.

But humiliating Seraphine was unthinkable.

“And your grandmother?” I asked.

“She approved the plan.”

“Of course she did.”

“If our marriage becomes public tonight, people will question every decision I made while I was blind. They’ll say I was vulnerable. That you influenced me.”

“So your solution was to tell them I was the help?”

“My solution was to protect what we have.”

I slid the wedding ring from my finger.

For the first time that night, Lucian looked frightened.

“Put it back on.”

“Why?”

“Elowen.”

“If no one can know what it means, why does it matter whether I wear it?”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Mr. Montclair?” a photographer called. “Mrs. Montclair is waiting for the family portrait.”

Lucian closed his hand around mine, trapping the ring between our palms.

“Go upstairs,” he said. “Wait for me. I’ll explain when the guests leave.”

I looked at the man who believed I would obey because I always had.

“All right.”

Relief crossed his face.

He kissed my forehead, opened the door, and returned to the ballroom with Seraphine on his arm.

Lucian thought I was going upstairs to wait for him.

For the first time in three years, I had no intention of being there when he came back.