Mag-log inChapter 34"My parents—" she started."Are fine," Seris said. He sat beside her. His voice was very steady. "I called. They're in Bali. They're absolutely fine. There was a miscommunication. I'm sorry, Nadine."Nadine stared at him. "They're—""Fine. I promise."The color began coming back slowly."I fainted," she said."You did. It's completely understandable.""In a corridor.""Yes."She processed this. Then she looked past Seris to where Kate was standing with the expression she'd been maintaining, which was still impressive, and still clear, and still open."You told me—" Nadine started."I'm so sorry," Kate said. "The information I had was clearly wrong. I can only apologize."Nadine looked at her for a moment.Then she looked at Seris.Then, with the specific look of a woman who had fainted in a corridor and was reassembling her dignity and her understandi
Chapter 33"Go," Seris said. "Of course. Don't worry about this.""I'm so sorry," Nadine said, to no one in particular, the way people apologized when they were in shock about something that had nothing to do with being sorry.She started breathing in the shallow way of someone who was holding something together very carefully and wasn't sure how long they could hold it.Then the elevator doors opened.Not smoothly — they jerked once, then slid. Two building maintenance staff were on the other side looking relieved and slightly alarmed, which was the correct response to an elevator that had Kate Bridgerton on top of it.Kate guided Nadine out with a practiced care."I'll take her down," Kate said to the maintenance staff. "Can you call for medical—no, actually, I'll handle it. Come on, Nadine. My car is outside."They went.Seris watched them go.Then he looked at the maintenance staff. "What caused it
Chapter 32She was mid-thirties, Silver estimated. Very composed, very well-dressed, with the particular posture of someone who had been told this was a networking event and had dressed accordingly. She was standing close to Seris in the way of someone who had been told this was also possibly more than a networking event and was managing the ambiguity.Silver recognized the energy. She had been in that position once.The three of them stood in the elevator.Silver pressed herself into the corner in the way of someone who was absolutely fine and simply preferred corners.Seris had seen her. Of course he had — the elevator was not large. He had seen her in the half-second before the doors closed and his expression had done something brief and complicated that he had then arranged back into professional neutral.He pressed the button for the twentieth floor.The elevator began to move."Floor seventeen?" the woman said, read
Chapter 31Skylia had opinions.This was not new. Skylia had always had opinions — loud ones, specific ones, delivered at a volume and frequency that suggested she considered silence a personal failing. But she had been storing this particular set for three months, ever since the alliance decision, and they arrived on Saturday morning with the full force of something that had been waiting for its moment.Silver had made the mistake of mentioning the vote over breakfast.Not dwelling on it. Just mentioning it. A single sentence, factual, while she was pouring coffee: *The Bridgerton proposal carried. We move to execution phase.*Skylia had looked at her across the kitchen table.Then she had put down her fork."He did it on purpose," she said."Sky—""No, listen to me." Skylia pointed. "He did it on purpose. He was retaliating.""He was casting a tiebreaker vote in a professional setting—"
Chapter 30Silver was the first of the principals to leave.She said something brief to Edmund Winters on the way out, received a nod in return, and walked to the door with the same settled quality she'd walked in with.At the door she paused.She turned and looked back at the room once, the way you looked at a room you were going to remember.Her eyes moved across the space and landed, briefly, on Kate.Kate was looking at her.They held it for a second.Then Silver turned and walked out.---Seris was the last to leave from the Ashford side.Marcus went first, then the technical team, then Julian, who closed his notebook and put it in his bag and said something to Seris that Kate didn't hear. Seris shook his head once. Julian left.Kate was nearly ready to go.She had her folder closed and her bag on her shoulder when Seris crossed the room.Not toward the door.Toward her.She straightened.He st
Chapter 29Across the table, Silver had not moved. Her hands were still flat on the table. She was looking at the middle distance, which was the look of someone who had also decided to wait without performing the waiting.Their fathers, one seat back, were both still.Julian had his notebook open. He was not writing anything.Marcus Webb had his pen on the table and was looking at Seris.Seris looked at the Bridgerton proposal.He looked at the Winters counter-proposal.He turned one page in the Bridgerton document. Read something. Turned it back.He set the pen down.Then he picked it up again.Kate was still looking at the window. She was thinking about nothing. She had found, over the past three months, that the best thing to do when you were waiting for something you couldn't control was to think about nothing. It was harder than it sounded. She'd gotten better at it.Seris looked up.He looked at the room.He lo
Chapter 11She had liked Kate because Kate was genuinely good. Not performatively good, not good in the way of someone who wanted credit for it, but good in the simple and fundamental way of a person who actually saw other people. She had shown up at Silver's first charity event with a donation and
Chapter 10Paris in December was the kind of beautiful that felt almost rude.Silver stood at the window of her hotel room in the seventh arrondissement, a cup of tea cooling in her hands, watching the city move below her in the grey morning light. The Eiffel Tower was visible from this angle if sh
Chapter 5Kate tuned them out, her attention caught by movement at the altar. Seris had pulled out his phone.At his own wedding.She watched his expression shift—just slightly, just a micro-expression that most people would miss but Kate had known him long enough to read. Surprise. Then something
Chapter 4The Cathedral of Saint Catherine was obscenely beautiful.Kate had been inside exactly three times before today but she'd never seen it like this. Every surface seemed to glow with candlelight. It was excessive. Elegant. Exactly the kind of wedding the Ashford family would throw.Kate sm







