Chapter 1 - The Woman Beside the Curtain
“Why is she standing over there?”
Lucian’s question landed between the chandeliers and the raised champagne glasses.
Celeste gave a delicate laugh. “Rebecca wanted some space. You know how uncomfortable she gets at these events.”
Rebecca opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
For two years, she had corrected small lies in private and allowed large ones to stand in public. She had called it patience. Tonight, with pain spreading through her pelvis and the ballroom tilting around her, it felt more like disappearance.
Lucian stepped toward her.
“Becca.”
Nobody else called her that.
She tried to straighten. The movement pulled painfully beneath the dressing hidden under her gown.
His eyes lowered.
A dark patch had appeared along the emerald fabric near her right hip.
For one suspended second, he stared at it without understanding.
Then he reached her.
“Are you bleeding?”
“It’s probably just—”
“Rebecca.”
His voice was quiet enough that only she could hear the fear beneath it.
She looked down.
The blood had soaked through the gauze, her underclothes, and the expensive dress Celeste had insisted she wear because photographs would be taken.
Lucian removed his jacket and wrapped it around her waist.
“Get a chair,” he said.
A waiter moved immediately.
Celeste approached with her smile still attached.
“There’s no need for a scene. Perhaps she caught the fabric on something.”
Lucian did not look at her.
“Call an ambulance.”
Rebecca caught his wrist. “I have discharge papers in my purse. There’s a number for the transplant team.”
The word seemed to stop his breathing.
“What transplant team?”
Behind him, somebody set down a champagne flute too hard.
Rebecca’s fingers tightened weakly around his sleeve.
“I matched Elliot.”
Lucian stared at her.
The room remained crowded, brightly lit, full of flowers and money and people who had just toasted an anonymous stranger.
But his expression emptied of everything except his wife.
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
He lowered himself in front of her chair.
“You had surgery yesterday?”
She nodded once.
His gaze moved over her face, her trembling hands, the careful angle of her body.
“And you came here?”
Before Rebecca could answer, Celeste said, “That cannot be right. We would have been informed.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“You weren’t entitled to my medical information.”
It was the first sentence she had spoken all evening without apologizing.
Lucian stood.
“Who touched her?”
Celeste’s smile vanished.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Who touched my wife?”
The photographer, standing near the floral display, slowly lowered his camera.
Nobody spoke.
Then a young server said, “Mrs. Devereaux moved her away from the photograph, sir. She stumbled.”
Celeste turned toward him.
“You misunderstood.”
“No,” Rebecca said.
Her own voice surprised her.
Lucian looked back.
She met his eyes.
“She said family only.”
Something passed across his face that frightened Rebecca more than anger would have.
Recognition.
Not of one incident.
Of a pattern he should have seen long before tonight.
The paramedics arrived within minutes. Lucian stepped aside while they checked Rebecca’s pulse and blood pressure, answering practical questions when she struggled to concentrate.
A medic asked whether she felt faint.
“Yes,” she admitted.
Lucian closed his eyes briefly.
Celeste reached for his arm.
“People are watching.”
He looked at her hand until she removed it.
“Then let them watch me take care of my wife.”
Rebecca heard the words.
They should have comforted her.
Instead, she thought of every earlier dinner when she had waited for him to say something equally simple.
As the paramedics helped her onto the stretcher, Lucian reached for her hand.
She let him hold it.
But when he said, “I didn’t know,” she turned her face toward him.
“You didn’t know about the donation.”
His grip went still.
For the first time that evening, she saw that he understood the difference.
Behind them, the photographer’s camera screen still displayed the family portrait.
Celeste at the center.
An empty space beside the curtain.
And, at the edge of the frame, Rebecca catching herself before she fell.
May you like
Lucian looked at that image once.
Then he followed his wife out.
