Chapter10

Celia's POV

I already knew before I pulled up to the curb.

My hands stayed loose on the wheel, but my knuckles had gone white somewhere between the second and third intersection, and I only noticed when I flexed them at the red light. Brighton Preparatory School. Of course it was. Victor's estate, Ivy's background, the school's enrollment threshold — all of it lined up cleanly once I ran the logic. There was nothing irrational about it. Ivy and Leonie attending the same school made perfect sense.

I told myself there was no need to worry. The odds of running into Arthur and the others just now were impossibly slim.

I put the car in park and came around to Ivy's side. She was already unbuckling herself, the small lavender sachet she'd been holding the whole ride still clutched in her palm.

The drop-off area was noisy in that particular Brighton way — parents clustered in careful social formations, voices pitched just low enough to seem casual. I kept my pace steady and scanned ahead without meaning to.

My steps faltered.

Arthur stood slightly apart from the crowd, one hand in his coat pocket, shoulders squared, looking exactly as he always did in any room — like the room had been arranged around him. Diana was at his side, a cashmere wrap loose around her shoulders, her pale profile catching the morning light in a way that made her look fragile and deliberate at once. She had Leonie's hand in hers. Leonie stood between them in her school uniform, every hair in place, small and composed and perfectly positioned.

They looked like a whole, complete family.

I heard it before I processed it — a woman nearby, voice low and unguarded: "Is that Leonie's mom? She's beautiful."

I looked at Leonie without thinking about it.

Leonie turned her head toward Diana and smiled. It was small, unhurried, and said everything without saying a word. She didn't nod. She didn't shake her head. She just let the question sit there and smiled into it, and somehow that was worse than either answer would have been.

I stood with that for a moment, waiting to feel the familiar drop in my chest.

It came slowly.

What I felt was a faint flutter in my heart — a quiet detachment. Perhaps I had watched scenes like this too many times, and the raw, sharp pain was long gone.

I tightened my hand around Ivy's and walked forward.

At the gate, Ivy stopped. She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out the lavender sachet, and set it carefully into my palm. Then she raised her other hand and held her tablet up.

Two words on the screen: Come afternoon.

Not a question.

It felt as though something heavy that I hadn’t even noticed pressing on my chest had finally lifted. I smiled, a genuine smile. “I’ll be right here,” I told her. “I promise.”

She looked at me for a half-second longer than she usually did, then turned and walked through the gate. Three steps in, she paused — just briefly, just enough that I noticed — and then kept going without looking back.

I turned toward the parking lot.

"Celia."

I stopped. I didn't turn around right away. I recognized his voice the way you recognize a sound you've been listening for without wanting to — immediately, involuntarily, with a small contraction somewhere behind the sternum.

Arthur had closed the distance between us. His voice was low, controlled, carrying that particular brand of restraint he'd always mistaken for patience.

"I wasn't aware you'd acquired a daughter."

I turned then. He was watching me with that expression I knew better than almost anything else — utterly composed, certain he had the complete picture, certain he was the center of whatever picture he was looking at.

"You don't need to use a child to get my attention," he said. "It's unnecessary."

The absurdity of it landed before the irritation did. He had looked at me dropping a child off at school and concluded it was a performance staged for his benefit. He genuinely could not conceive of a version of my life that wasn't organized around him.

I felt tired. Not angry — just tired in a way that had no heat left in it.

"Arthur." I kept my voice level. "I'm handling the divorce. That's where my attention is." I paused. "I don't need yours. I need you to stop showing up in my life."

I didn't wait to see his face change. I turned and walked to my car, the lavender sachet still in my hand, and I didn't look back at the gate or at the three figures still arranged beside it.

In the car, I set the sachet on the center console and started the engine.

I didn't cry. I sat with that fact for a moment, genuinely surprised by it. A few weeks ago, even a few days ago, I might have needed the drive to process what I'd just seen. But the image of the three of them — Arthur, Diana, Leonie, that perfect framing — had done something I hadn't expected. It had finished something. Whatever had still been bleeding quietly in the back of my mind, that tableau had finally closed it off.

I pulled out of the lot and drove toward Chelsea.

The studio was a converted warehouse unit on the ground floor of a building that had been a textile factory before the neighborhood turned over. North-facing windows, floor to ceiling. I'd signed the paperwork two days ago. Today I was coming to measure the space and go over the renovation layout with the contractor.

That day I stood by the north-facing window. Morning light streamed through it, falling across the concrete floor in smooth, even shafts. Part of the reason I’d chosen this apartment was the light: soft, never harsh, steady and pleasant. I could spend six hours in it without straining my eyes.

The broker was already outside when I arrived, standing by the door with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"Ms. Hart." He cleared his throat. "There's something I need to tell you before we go in."

He explained that someone had reached out to him this morning — a party with, in his words, strong interest in the property. They were offering thirty percent above the sale price and wanted to know if I'd consider a transfer.

I looked at him. "I'm not interested in selling. I like this space."

His expression shifted into something more uncomfortable. He cleared his throat again.

"The interested party," he said, "is Arthur Winston."

The words landed in the quiet between us and stayed there.

My fingers tightened around the folder in my hand and I wondered to myself, why had Arthur suddenly taken an interest in the studio?