Chapter Four

Celeste's Pov

There were exactly two options. Lie or tell the truth. Lying to Nico Voss in his own house on a matter he could verify in under an hour seemed like a fast way to lose the small ground I had gained. So I told the truth.

"He's someone I knew before all of this," I said. "We were involved. It ended."

Nico held my gaze for a moment that felt longer than it was. "How long ago."

"Two years."

"And he's at my gate."

"I didn't invite him."

He set the paper down fully. "I know you didn't." He looked at Iris. "Send him away."

"Wait." I stood up. "I want to know why he's here first."

"That's not—"

"You said decisions that affect me come with information." I kept my voice level. "Dominic showing up here affects me. I want sixty seconds with him at the gate. In view of your men. And then he leaves."

Nico looked at me for a long moment. The kind of look that was doing calculations I couldn't see.

"At the gate," he said. "Twenty minutes. One of my men stands with you."

I nodded and left the table before he changed his mind.

**************

Dominic looked the same. That was the first thing I noticed. Same face, same way of standing like he was perpetually about to say something important. He watched me walk toward him across the gravel and his expression did something complicated.

"You look well," he said.

"Why are you here, Dominic."

He glanced at the man standing six feet to my left. Lowered his voice slightly. "I needed to see that you were alright."

"You could have called Sera."

"Sera is the one who told me where you were." He paused. "Celeste, I need to tell you something and I need you to hear it without reacting."

"Tell me."

"The reason I left two years ago." He stopped. Started again. "Your father came to me. He told me you were already promised to someone else and that if I stayed in your life it would create problems for the family that would land on you. He gave me money to walk away and I—" He exhaled. "I took it. I told myself I was protecting you. I know how that sounds."

I stood very still. The gravel was loud under my feet even though I wasn't moving.

"How much," I said.

"That's not the point—"

"How much did he pay you to leave me."

Dominic looked at the ground. "Fifty thousand."

I had spent two years thinking he chose safety over me. Chose his own uncomplicated life over the mess of mine. I had made peace with that version of the story because at least it was a decision he made. This was different. This was my father reaching into something real and removing it like a weed.

"Why are you telling me now," I said.

"Because you deserve to know. And because—" He looked up. "I don't think you're safe here, Celeste."

"You don't know anything about here."

"I know who Nico Voss is."

"So do I." I took a step back. "Goodbye, Dominic."

"Celeste—"

"Don't come back." I turned around and walked back toward the house without looking at the man standing to my left or the windows I knew were being watched from.

I went straight to my room. Sat down on the bed and pressed my hands together and breathed through the anger until it became something manageable. My father had done a lot of things. I had catalogued all of them. But I hadn't known about Dominic and the not knowing meant I had been carrying a wound that was shaped wrong. I had blamed myself for that ending in ways I hadn't fully admitted.

I stayed in my room through the midday and into the afternoon. Nobody came to check on me. I appreciated that more than I expected to.

Nico found me at four in the east wing corridor. I was coming from the library and he was coming from the meeting I assumed had run long. He stopped when he saw me.

"Are you alright," he said.

"Fine."

He looked at me the way he sometimes did, like he was deciding whether to accept the answer or push it. "What did he want."

"To tell me something my father did two years ago." I shifted the book under my arm. "Nothing related to you or this house. You don't need the details."

"I disagree."

"I know." I met his eyes. "But you said information goes both ways. Right now this one is mine."

A beat. Something moved across his face that I couldn't place. Not irritation. Closer to respect, which surprised me.

"Fine," he said.

We stood in the corridor for a moment neither of us moved through.

"The meeting," I said. "How did it go."

He seemed slightly caught off guard by the question. "Well enough."

"Viktor Voss was here." I had seen the car from my window. "He's your uncle."

"Yes."

"You don't like him."

Nico's expression didn't change but something behind it did. "What makes you say that."

"You haven't mentioned him once. You mention everyone else who moves through this house. Even briefly." I paused. "People don't forget to mention the ones they trust. They forget to mention the ones they're watching."

The silence that followed was different from his usual silences. Heavier.

"You're observant," he said finally.

"I've had to be."

He nodded once and moved past me down the corridor. I watched him go and thought about Viktor's car in the driveway and the way Iris had looked when she announced it that morning. Careful. Practiced.

I went back to my room and opened the book without reading it.

That night he knocked on my door at ten. I opened it and he stood in the doorway and looked at me with an expression I had never seen on him before. Something unguarded and slightly lost.

"The man this morning," he said quietly. "Did you love him."

I looked at him for a long moment.

"Yes," I said. "I did."

His jaw tightened just slightly. "And now."

"Now I live here." I held his gaze. "Why does it matter to you."

He didn't answer. Just looked at me for another moment and then turned and walked back down the corridor.

I stood in the doorway and watched him go and felt something shift in the air between us that hadn't been there before.

I closed the door and stood with my back against it.

Something was wrong. Not dangerous wrong. Different wrong. The way he had looked at me just now was not the look of a man enforcing a contract. It was something older than that and more honest and it sat in my chest in a way I didn't have a name for yet.

I crossed to my window and looked out at the dark grounds.