Page 83 of The Cruel Heir
Friday, a courier returned my own invitation, marked ‘undeliverable, no forwarding’. Panic chewed a hole through reason, until Frankie reminded me she had simply refused delivery. I bought out every florist within ten blocks, and had red peonies shipped to Riverside Hall, then burned the receipts, so she would never see the cost.
Saturday bled into Sunday without mercy. The estate’s silence began to taste of iron. I drifted room to room like a revenant, stopping always at the music-room threshold. One step past that door, and I could hear the quivering note she’d drawn beneath the rose window, see the rain dripping from her curls. I could not survive the echo, so I turned away, every time.
On Monday, I nicked my jaw shaving, first blood I’d allowed since she left. The drop chased itself down porcelain, a single red period in a sentence I could no longer complete. I secured mother’s onyx studs, adjusted the bow tie, slid the ring box into my breast pocket, and let the chauffeur open the door, like a confession.
Riverside Hall loomed ahead, swarming with paparazzi. Flashbulbs detonated, and microphones lunged like spear tips.
Where was Mrs. Kingsley?
Will the heir attend alone?
I gave them silence, and the chill of a smile I did not feel. Inside, light washed the foyer gold, string quartets warmed their bows, and every face turned, hungry for the woman absent from my arm.
I prowled the mezzanine, eyes on the doors, planning apologies that felt too thin to cover the wreckage I’d authored.The room was yours before I built it. The world was cruelerthan my love. Come home.Each draft dissolved into ash before it reached my tongue.
Seven-fifty. Rain traced lazy bullets across the skylight. I touched the ring box, its corners digging a promise into my ribs. Every heartbeat struck a bargain: raze kingdoms, kneel to any god, exhume every secret, only let her step through that door.
Seven-fifty-five. A hush rippled through the foyer, an arriving car, maybe hers, maybe not. I moved to the archway, tux immaculate, soul unraveling thread by desperate thread. Flashbulbs flared outside as a taxi rolled to the curb, red silk visible through fogged glass. My breath stalled, the animal in my chest braced for salvation or ruin.
Please, I thought, the word raw and silent.Let it be her. Let me fall to my knees on this marble, and beg, until the stone remembers mercy.
The door swung open. Rain-lit night spilled inside.
And I prayed to every god I never believed in, that the storm crossing the threshold wore crimson.
ZARA
The Kingsley Art Gala had always been the city’s glittering confession booth, every sin lacquered in champagne, and gold leaf. But, this year, it felt like a guillotine dressed in silk. I arrived alone, a single name on the guest list that read Zara Elise Kingsley, even though I had spent the last month pretending that name did not own me. The crimson gown clung like a second pulse, each step through the marble foyer echoing too loudly, as if the hall itself were asking where my monster hid.
Sterling was not beside me.
That absence scraped at the bone.
I felt it when the doorman whispered Mrs. Kingsley, right this way, felt it when a trio of influencers in column gowns froze mid–air kiss, to catalogue my belly, my curls, and the loneliness stitched into my posture. Every chandelier burned hot on my skin, but the space inside my ribs stayed winter-empty.
Across the atrium, art critics circled a triptych of oil-slick nightmares. Somewhere on the mezzanine, a quartet tugged at a Vivaldi prelude, the violins sounding like a question I couldn’t bear to answer. I took a flute of champagne, ignored the warningthrob in my temple, and told myself I could survive one night without Sterling’s shadow pressed to my spine.
It lasted twelve minutes.
Each tick of the antique clock drove my pulse harder, until the hush shifted. A susurration swept the crowd: heads turning, whispers sharpening. I followed their gaze to the arched entrance, just as he stepped through it.
Sterling wore midnight wool and grief, like twin skins. His smile, sharp, fractional, did not touch his eyes. I saw the moment those eyes found me; the ground slipped half an inch sideways. He had not shaved the worry off his jaw, and he had not slept. I tasted our week of mutiny in the tremor that ran through him.
He didn’t cross the floor right away; power made its own gravity, and the crowd orbited him first, hands to shake, alliances to threaten. I felt each measured nod, like stitches pulling at fresh scars. I turned to a gilt mirror, just to breathe, and caught sight of myself: a storm bottled in silk, pupils blown wide with wanting. I hated how relief shimmered beneath the hate.
When he finally moved toward me, the gala’s roar thinned to wind in my ears. He stopped at regulation distance, no touch, just heat, his gaze cataloguing every inch, like he needed proof I was real.
“Red,” he said, voice rougher than memory. “You always knew how to bleed beautifully.”
“I came for the art,” I lied, lifting my flute so he wouldn’t see my hand shake.
“And I came for forgiveness,” he replied, softer, as if the words were barbed. “We can trade.”
“I haven’t decided if you deserve it.”
“I decided I can’t breathe without it.” His throat bobbed. “Or without you.”
The admission sliced us both open. For a beat the gala receded, just Sterling, me, and the chasm we’d carved. Then the orchestra shifted into a waltz I recognized, from the night he showed me his shrine. The crowd parted, as though the floor itself remembered our steps.
