Chapter 6: Will He Recognize Me?

The silence Evelyn left behind settled over the room like dust.

Regina stood exactly where she was, staring at the empty hallway. The house was quiet. The grandfather clock ticked steadily from the living room, louder than it had ever seemed before.

Rosalie was alive.

Three words. Everything changed.

For two years she had measured herself against a ghost — hated a memory, envied a woman she had never met. She had spent countless nights wondering if she would ever be enough for a man still living inside someone else's story.

Now she wasn't competing with a memory.

She was competing with someone who breathed.

A short, humorless laugh almost escaped her.

Life had a very twisted sense of humor.

She turned to look at Alexander.

He hadn't spoken since Evelyn walked out. His expression was controlled, almost unreadable — but Regina knew his face too well for that to work on her anymore. His jaw was tight. His eyes had gone somewhere distant, moving through six years of memory, trying to understand how all of it had been built on a lie.

For the first time since she had known him, he didn't look like the Alexander Kingston the world was afraid of. He looked like a man whose past had just grabbed him by the throat.

"Alexander."

He looked at her immediately.

"I'm sorry," she said.

A small crease appeared between his brows. "What are you apologizing for?"

"I don't know." She smiled sadly. "I just don't know."

He took a slow step toward her. "Don't apologize. You didn't do anything wrong."

She looked down. Part of her wanted to ask the question she had been swallowing all evening — the one that had been sitting at the back of her throat since Evelyn said Rosalie's name.

If she walks through that door tomorrow, will you still ask me to stay?

She couldn't say it. She was afraid of the answer.

"I think you should be alone," she said carefully. "You've just found out the woman you loved is alive."

"I found out the woman I thought was dead might be alive." His voice was quiet but certain. "There's a difference."

She looked up.

"If Rosalie is alive, then someone lied." He slipped one hand into his pocket, his eyes never leaving hers. "Someone wanted me to believe she was dead for six years. That's not a love story, Regina. That's a betrayal."

She wanted to believe that should have comforted her.

It didn't. It only made her chest ache more. Because grief had shaped Alexander long before she ever met him, and if everything he believed about Rosalie had been a lie — who exactly was the man standing in front of her now?

Her handbag pressed against her arm. The envelope inside seemed to call out to her.

She could still tell him. She could place it in his hands and watch everything shift. She imagined his face softening. Imagined him smiling.

She imagined hearing him say, We're having a baby.

The thought almost made her cry.

Not because she doubted he would be happy. But because the timing had never been worse. How could she hand him the best news of his life on the same night another woman came back from the dead?

"You've been trying to tell me something since I got home," Alexander said quietly.

She froze.

"I can see it every time you look at that bag."

She forced a small smile. "When did you become so observant?"

"I should have been a long time ago."

She looked at him for a long moment. Then she opened her bag slowly and slipped her fingers inside until she found the edge of the white envelope. This was it. One movement. One sentence.

She pulled it halfway out.

Her phone rang.

The sharp vibration shattered the silence. Regina frowned at the screen. Unknown number. She pressed decline and slipped the envelope back into her bag.

"It can wait," she murmured.

The phone rang again immediately. Same number.

Alexander glanced at the screen. "They seem determined."

"I don't know anyone with this number."

"Answer it."

She hesitated. Then she swiped and lifted the phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

Silence. Not an empty line — someone was there. Breathing. Listening.

"Who is this?" Regina said.

Several seconds passed. Then a woman's voice answered. Soft. Unhurried. Almost cultured.

"I thought you would have left him by now."

Regina's grip tightened on the phone. "I'm sorry — who is speaking?"

"I asked you a question first." A pause. "Why are you still there?"

"I think you have the wrong number."

"No." No hesitation at all. "I called the right wife."

Regina glanced at Alexander. He stepped closer, reading her expression. She raised one finger — wait.

"What do you want?" Regina asked.

"I wanted to make sure you were safe." Another pause. "I told myself if you had left him tonight, I wouldn't make this call."

"That doesn't explain who you are."

A quiet laugh. Not cruel. Just sad. "You sound exactly the way I imagined."

The hairs on the back of Regina's neck rose. "You imagined me?"

"More than once."

Alexander reached for the phone. Regina shook her head. Not yet.

"Who are you?" she said again.

This time the woman didn't avoid the question. Instead she asked, "Does your husband still wear his wedding ring?"

Regina's eyes dropped to Alexander's left hand. The platinum band sat exactly where it always had. She had never once noticed that he never took it off.

"Yes," she said quietly.

A long breath on the other end of the line. "I thought he would."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he hasn't changed as much as I feared." The woman's voice faltered for the first time. "The question isn't who I am, Mrs. Kingston. The question is whether your husband will recognize me."

The call ended.

Regina stood completely still, staring at the black screen.

Alexander took the phone gently from her hand. "What did she say?"

"She knew I was here." Regina looked at him. "She knew about tomorrow. The meeting."

Neither of them said it out loud. But they were both thinking it. Very few people knew about that meeting.

Alexander dialed Nathan without another word.

"Sir?"

"Trace a number for me."

Nathan's keyboard clicked rapidly. Then silence.

"That's impossible," Nathan said.

Alexander's jaw tightened. "What?"

"The number isn't registered to anyone. According to the system — no call was ever made from that number."

The color drained slowly from Regina's face.

Nathan broke the silence. "Sir. There's something else."

"What?"

"The woman who arranged tomorrow's meeting." He hesitated. "She's changed her mind. She doesn't want to wait until tomorrow."

A strange stillness settled in Regina's chest.

"When?" Alexander said.

"Tonight."

"Where?"

"She said you'll know the place."

Alexander frowned. "What does that mean?"

"I asked the same thing." Nathan paused. "She only left one message."

"What message?"

Nathan's voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"Tell Alexander that six years is a long time to keep someone waiting."

The line went quiet.

Alexander stood perfectly still, the phone pressed against his ear long after the call ended. Regina watched every emotion leave his face until there was nothing left to read.

Then he lowered the phone.

And for the first time since she had known him — through boardroom wars, through cold silences, through everything — he looked afraid.

Not of what he was about to find.

Of what he already knew.