Chapter 5
Marcus denied arranging the attack.
He denied it three times.
Then Celeste ruined him.
“You said nobody would stab him.”
Silence.
Marcus turned slowly.
“What?”
Celeste covered her mouth.
Too late.
I looked at her.
“What was supposed to happen?”
She shook her head.
“Nolan—”
“What was supposed to happen?”
Marcus snapped:
“Nothing permanent.”
I almost laughed.
There it was.
Not innocence.
Scale.
He continued:
“We needed you away from the estate.”
“Why?”
“So Mae could leave.”
“You attacked me to remove my girlfriend.”
Marcus rolled his eyes.
“She was changing you.”
Mae flinched.
I stepped closer.
“How?”
“You canceled meetings for her concerts.”
“One.”
“You let her into private rooms.”
“The music room.”
“You told people you might marry her.”
“Yes.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
“Exactly.”
I understood.
Celeste and Marcus had been working toward a Wainwright alliance long before my engagement.
Mae made that impossible.
“She was a maid,” Celeste said.
“She wasn’t.”
“She might as well have been.”
Mae’s mouth tightened.
Celeste continued:
“You were going to embarrass an entire family over a nobody.”
Nora heard it.
“Mommy is somebody.”
Celeste laughed.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Her voice became syrup.
Fake kindness.
“Your mother scrubs fireplaces.”
Nora’s eyes filled.
Celeste leaned toward her.
“And you sleep in servants’ rooms because that is where people like you belong.”
I moved before Mae could.
Not violence.
I simply stood between them.
Celeste smiled at me.
“There. Every time she cries, you move.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And I’m your fiancée.”
“Not for much longer.”
Her expression emptied.
Marcus stepped forward.
“You can’t break the alliance over this.”
“This?”
I held up the ring.
“This is four years of my life.”
Mae whispered:
“And Nora’s.”
I looked at her.
She was right.
Marcus saw it.
His face changed.
Then Mae said something else.
“When I returned eight months ago, Celeste knew immediately who Nora was.”
I turned.
“How?”
Mae looked at Celeste.
“Because she had been watching us the entire time.”
Celeste stopped breathing.
Mae continued.
“Every apartment.”
“Every job.”
“Every daycare.”
My jaw tightened.
May you like
This wasn’t an old conspiracy that ended.
It had followed my daughter for three years.
