Chapter Five : Ashes of Yesterday

Chapter 5 

The doorbell rang at ten.

I had showered twice. I had scrubbed my skin pink and pulled on the loosest clothes I owned and changed the sheets, and none of it had helped. When I opened the door, my stomach dropped through the floor.

Lucien stood on the porch in yesterday's shirt, wrinkled and open at the collar. He had two shopping bags in one hand and a bouquet tucked under the other arm.

"There she is," he said brightly. "Morning."

I couldn't speak.

He strolled past me into the house like he owned it, which he did, and dropped the bags on the dining table beside the melted candles. He didn't look at the candles. He didn't look at the table at all.

"I can't stay long. I've got a meeting at eleven. But I wanted to swing by."

"Lucien."

"About last night." He turned, rubbing the back of his neck with a boyish, rueful smile. "I was drunk. You saw me. I was completely out of it. You know how I get when the guys drag me out."

"You kissed her," I said. "In front of me."

"I was drunk, Elara. I didn't know what I was doing." He said it lightly, like he was explaining a spilled drink. "Can we move on? I brought you some things."

He nudged the bags toward me. "Go ahead. Open them."

"Not now."

"Elara."

"I said not now."

His smile slipped, just a little. Then he shrugged and let it go.

That was when I saw his collar.

A smear of red lipstick lay along the white cotton, dark and unmistakable, just above the third button. And above it, on the side of his neck, partly hidden under his jaw, was a mark. Purple and fresh, the size of a coin.

My stomach turned over.

"What's that?"

He frowned. "What's what?"

"On your shirt. On your neck."

His hand went to his collar. For half a second his face went blank. Then he laughed. "Oh. That. It's nothing."

"It's lipstick."

"Elara, it's from the club. One of Marcus's friends got carried away at the end of the night, everyone was hugging, you know how it is. That girl in red? Ivy? She's Marcus's cousin. She's just a kid. She had too much to drink and fell on me."

"She fell on your neck."

"People do things when they're drunk."

"And the one in silver?"

"Another friend of Marcus's. A client's date, I think. I barely know her." He waved a hand. "I was being polite. We were closing a deal. You make a scene and suddenly I'm the villain."

"Ivy told me you've been sleeping in her bed since March."

"She was winding you up!" His voice cracked like a whip, and his smile was gone entirely. "Women like that say things to get a reaction. And you gave her one. You and that lunatic friend of yours."

"Don't call her that."

"She threw a drink in a guest's face, Elara. In front of my business partners." He stepped closer, and his eyes were hard now, flat and cold. "Do you have any idea what people are saying this morning? That my wife is a hysterical mess and her friend is a thug. You disgraced me. I should be the one demanding an apology."

"You humiliated me!"

"And I said sorry." He threw both hands up. "I came here. I brought gifts. I said I was drunk. What more do you want? You and Mara have been waiting for an excuse to make me look bad for years, and last night you finally got it."

"That's not..."

"I'm done." He grabbed his keys off the table. "I don't have time for this. Think about how you behaved, and think about what you want people to say about you. Call me when you've calmed down."

He stalked to the door and yanked it open. The bright morning light caught the lipstick on his collar again.

He didn't look back. He didn't say another word. He slammed it so hard the windows rattled.

Through the glass, I watched him cross the lawn to a long black car at the curb. A woman sat in the passenger seat with her sunglasses pushed up into her hair. Red lipstick.

Ivy.

She lifted two fingers and wiggled them at me through the windshield. She smiled.

Then Lucien got in, and the car pulled away.

I stood there with my fists clenched and my heart pounding, and realized what he hadn't said. In the whole long scene, through the apology and the bribe and the shouting, he had never once said happy birthday.

The only ones who had said it was Mara and a man I'd thrown out of my bedroom an hour ago.

---

Mara arrived forty minutes later in a cloud of fury.

She didn't knock. She used the spare key I'd given her years ago and came through the door with her hair standing on end, still wearing yesterday's leather jacket over her pajama top. There were dark smudges under her eyes.

"They let me out at four in the morning," she announced. "Four! Do you know I spent five hours in a room with a mop bucket and a security guard named Gary who kept offering me gum? I called you nine times."

"I'm sorry. My phone died."

"You texted 'don't do anything' and vanished." She stopped. Her eyes landed on the dining table. "What is that?"

"Lucien came by."

Mara's head turned very slowly. "He came here. After that."

"He said he was drunk."

"He said he was drunk." Her voice climbed. "Ellie, what did he say?"

"He said I disgraced him." My throat tightened. "He had lipstick on his collar, Mara. And a mark on his neck. I asked him about the women and he said Ivy was somebody's cousin."

For a moment, Mara didn't move at all.

"Where are the presents?" she asked, very quietly.

"I didn't open them."

She was already across the room. She tore the first bag open and dumped it onto the table. A long velvet box. A neon orange handbag with a giant buckle. A sugary perfume. A box of hazelnut chocolates. A bouquet of white lilies, their smell already filling the room. A red dress, silky and short.

She popped the box open. Inside lay a thick gold chain, heavy as a dog collar.

"Gold," Mara said.

"I only wear silver."

"Lilies."

"They smell like funerals."

"Hazelnut."

"I'm allergic to nuts. It's on my medical profile." I stared at the box. "He's known that for eleven years."

"Red."

"I've never worn red in my life."

"So he got you a present for someone else," Mara said slowly. "Or he doesn't know who you are. Which one's worse?"

I didn't answer. I looked at the pile of things on my table, gold and orange and red, and a cold, quiet clarity settled over me. None of it was for me. He hadn't thought about me once while he picked it.

"Did he say happy birthday?" Mara asked.

"No."

Mara inhaled, long and slow. Then she threw the handbag at the wall.

"MARA!"

"I'm not done!" She swept the perfume and chocolates off the table with her forearm. They hit the floor and rolled. She grabbed the lilies and hurled them after. She whirled on me with wet, blazing eyes. "Where's your lighter?"

"What?"

"The barbecue one."

"Mara, you can't..."

"Watch me."

She was already stalking into the kitchen. By the time I caught up, she had the lighter in one hand, a bottle of cooking oil in the other, and an armful of gifts crushed against her chest. She marched out the back door to the little metal grill on my patio.

"That bag cost nine hundred dollars!"

"Exactly!"

She dropped it in. The red dress went on top. She tore open the chocolates and tossed those in, then the lilies, then the card with his handwriting, then drowned everything in cooking oil like a woman possessed.

"And this?" She held up the gold chain. "You want to keep it? Sell it? Put it on a dog?"

I looked at the heavy, ugly thing in her hand.

I didn't want it. I didn't want a single item that man had touched, or the weight of it, or the cold shine of a peace offering that cost less than what he'd taken from me.

I took it from her and dropped it in.

Mara lit the match.

The fire caught with a soft whoosh. Orange light rolled up through the smoke. The handbag blackened and curled, the red dress went up in a bright flicker, and the smell of burning lilies and scorched perfume filled my yard. We stood side by side, watching it burn.

"I hate him," Mara said quietly.

"I know."

"I'd do so much worse, Ellie. You have no idea."

"I know." My throat was tight. "I know you would."

She turned and pulled me against her, hard. I pressed my face into her leather jacket and finally let myself shake.

"Happy birthday, by the way," she mumbled into my hair. "Again. Properly. Tomorrow I'm taking you somewhere nice. No men. No clubs. Just cake."

I laughed, wet and broken.

After a while she pulled back and wiped my cheeks with her thumbs. "Who drove you home last night? You never told me."

My whole body went still.

Tell her. The thought rose up hot and sudden. She's your best friend. Tell her everything.

But I thought of the way she'd screamed at Cassian across that club. No wonder nobody can stand you. I thought of the mark under my collar and the look on her face if she knew.

"Cassian drove me," I said. "He just drove me. Then he left."

Mara stared at me. "Ice King drove you home."

"He didn't say anything cruel. I think he felt bad."

"Huh." She frowned at the fire. "Well. Maybe he does have a soul." She squinted. "Still don't trust him."

"Neither do I," I said.

It was the first real lie I had ever told her. It sat in my mouth like ash.

We watched the flames shrink down to glowing embers. Behind us, inside the house, my phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

I went in and picked it up. The screen showed a number I had never saved and somehow already knew.

"Take today, Elara. But you won't forget last night, and I won't let you."