Chapter7

Celia's POV

I said I was fine. My wrist throbbed where Arthur's fingers had been, the ache settling into my bones like bruises do when you know they'll last for days. I flexed my hand once, testing the joints, making sure nothing had shifted out of place.

Arthur turned on the stranger with his jaw locked tight and his voice gone cold. "This is my wife. We just had an argument, a small disagreement, that's all. There's nothing for you to worry about."

The man looked at my wrist, at the red marks already darkening around the bone, and then back at Arthur. His voice stayed level. "Doesn't look that small to me."

Arthur's mouth opened, but before he could get another word out, Diana swayed against him with one hand pressed to her temple and the other clutching his sleeve. Her voice came out soft and shaky, just loud enough to carry. "Arthur... I don't feel well. I'm dizzy."

He caught her without a second thought, slipping one arm under her shoulders and the other beneath her knees to lift her into his arms. For a split second, a look of worry crossed his face.

He looked at me over Diana's head, his expression smoothing out into something harder. "This isn't finished. We'll talk about this when we get home."

Then he turned and walked away, Diana cradled in his arms like something fragile, and the corridor swallowed them both.

I stood there until the sound of his footsteps faded, until the door at the far end clicked shut, and then I turned to the man beside me. "Thank you."

He waved it off with a small shake of his head, like it was nothing. Then he said something I hadn't expected. "It was the least I could do. A woman as beautiful as you shouldn't have to deal with that. I think anyone would've stepped in."

I blinked. The words landed somewhere inside me that hadn't been touched in so long I'd forgotten it was there. Beautiful. He'd called me beautiful. Not capable, not useful, not good enough at keeping quiet. Just beautiful, like it was a fact, like it didn't need explaining or justifying or softening with a but.

I felt something hot press against the back of my eyes and I looked down fast, focusing on the scuff marks on the floor until the feeling passed. It had been six years since someone said something like that to me. Six years of hearing I was too sensitive, too stubborn, too much or not enough. Six years of adjusting myself smaller and quieter until I'd almost convinced myself that was all I was supposed to be.

"Thank you," I said again, and this time my voice came out rougher. "Really."

He nodded once, gave me a quick smile that didn't ask for anything back, and then he left, his footsteps echoing down the corridor the same way Arthur's had, only lighter, like he wasn't carrying the weight of anyone else's expectations with him.

I stood there alone for another minute, rubbing my wrist where it still ached, and I thought about that word. Beautiful. It felt like a door I'd forgotten existed, cracked open just enough to let a thin line of light through.

By the time I made it back to the ballroom, most of the guests were already drifting toward the exits, pulling on coats and saying their goodbyes in clusters near the doors. I found Julian by the coat check, holding my bag in one hand and his phone in the other.

He looked up when I approached, tucked his phone into his pocket, and handed me the bag without a word. "I'll take you home."

It was quiet the whole way. Julian drove with full concentration, one hand on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road. I watched the city slip past in streaks of light and shadow outside the window. San Loreto looked different at night, far softer than it did in the daytime, as if all its sharp edges had been smoothed away.

The car pulled up soon. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, watching his taillights disappear around the corner, and then I pulled out my phone. The notification was already waiting for me, bright and clinical against the dark screen.

Winston Family Trust Subsidiary Account — Frozen.

I stared at it for five seconds, maybe ten, and then I laughed. It came out short and bitter, the kind of sound you make when something you've been expecting finally happens and you're too tired to be surprised.

He thought cutting off my money would bring me back. He thought I'd panic, call him, apologize, do whatever it took to get access again. He didn't know about the account my mother had set up for me when I turned eighteen, the one I'd never touched, the one I'd kept separate from everything else like a locked drawer I wasn't ready to open. He thought he'd cut off my water supply. He didn't know I had a well he'd never seen.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket and turned toward the building. That's when I saw her.

A little girl, crouched by the flower bed at the edge of the sidewalk. Her hands were covered in dirt, her knees pressed into the mulch, and there were two other kids standing over her, laughing in that high, careless way children do when they don't understand yet that cruelty has consequences.

I stopped walking. Something in my chest pulled tight, the same way it used to when I'd see Leonie sitting alone at recess, her lunch untouched on the bench beside her.

The two kids saw me coming and bolted, their laughter cutting off mid-breath as they scrambled down the block. The little girl didn't move. She stayed crouched there, her fingers still tangled in the dirt, her face turned away from me like she was trying to make herself smaller.

I crouched down beside her, pulled a tissue from my bag, and held it out. "Here. For your hands."

She looked up at me then, her eyes wide and wary, like she was trying to decide if I was safe. Slowly, she took the tissue and wiped her palms, her movements careful and deliberate, and when she was done she folded it neatly and tried to hand it back to me.

I shook my head. "You can keep it."

I stood up, ready to leave, ready to go upstairs and lock the door behind me and let this day finally be over. But before I could take a step, I felt two small arms wrap around my waist from behind, holding on tight.

I froze. My whole body went still, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat, and for a second I couldn't feel anything except the weight of those arms around me and the ghost of another pair, smaller and warmer, that used to hold me just like that.

And then I heard it. One word, barely louder than a whisper.

"Mommy."