Chapter 13: Eating Alone

Aurelia's POV

Cassian had promised Thursday. Just the two of us, no board members, no calls he couldn't step away from. He'd said it almost sheepishly, like he already knew how rare a promise like that had become in our house.

I told Marta to set the small table in the sitting room instead of the long one built for twelve. I picked out the green dress he'd once said he liked, I lit the candles myself, careful with the match, telling myself not to hope too hard and doing it anyway.

His text came at six-forty, twenty minutes before he was supposed to walk through the door.

*Something came up with the Hendricks deal. Emergency call with London. I'm sorry.*

I read it standing in the doorway of the sitting room, the table already set, the candles already lit, and something in my chest folded in on itself, quiet and small.

I didn't sit down right away. I blew out one of the candles, then the other, because there didn't seem to be any point in letting them burn for no one, then I ate standing at the kitchen counter instead, quick and plain, because sitting at that table alone felt like more of an admission than I had the stomach for tonight.

*****

Afterward, restless in a way I didn't want to examine too closely, I put on my coat and walked the length of the estate grounds instead of going up to bed. The gardens were quiet this time of night, just the sound of my own footsteps on gravel and the distant hum of the city beyond the wall.

I found myself near the old gazebo at the far end of the property, the one Rosa used to bring me to as a girl, back before any of this....before Cassian, before the Blackthorne name, before I'd learned how heavy a house full of people could feel when none of them were actually looking at you.

I sat down on the bench inside it and let the cold air do what it always did, clear something out of my head that needed clearing.

That was where Vivienne found me.

I hadn't heard her approach until she was already standing at the entrance, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her expression unreadable in the dark.

"You're out here alone," she said. Not a question.

"I wanted some air."

"Cassian's call ran long, I take it." She stepped inside, uninvited, and sat on the opposite end of the bench, close enough that I couldn't easily leave without it looking like I was fleeing. "He does that. Even as a boy, he'd rather solve a problem than sit still with one that had already solved itself."

I didn't answer. I'd learned, over four years, that silence was usually safer with her than agreement.

"I used to sit out here myself," she said, surprising me, "after Richard died. Before you and Cassian married....this house gets very loud with people and very quiet with company, all at the same time, I don't imagine that's changed."

It was the closest thing to something human she'd ever said to me, and it unsettled me more than her usual cruelty did, because I didn't know what to do with it.

"Vivienne...."

"Kael's been very helpful with the gala, I hear." She cut me off smoothly, the moment of softness gone as quickly as it had appeared. "Priya mentioned it to one of the board wives, who mentioned it to me. Word travels fast in this family, in case you hadn't noticed."

My stomach tightened. "He's the sponsor liaison. It's his job to be involved."

"Of course it is." She looked at me directly then, and even in the dark I could feel the full weight of her attention. "I only mention it because I'd hate for anyone to mistake diligence for something else. People do talk, Aurelia. Especially about a woman sitting alone in a garden at midnight instead of in her husband's bed."

"I couldn't sleep."

"No," she said slowly, rising from the bench, gathering her shawl tighter. "I don't imagine you could."

She left without another word, her footsteps fading back toward the house, and I sat there in the gazebo a long time after she'd gone, my heart going harder than it should have for a conversation that hadn't actually accused me of anything at all.

That was always how she did it....no accusation. Just enough of a shadow cast in the right direction to make you check over your own shoulder for the rest of the night.

*****

I didn't go back inside for almost twenty minutes, needing the cold air to settle whatever she'd stirred up in me. When I finally did, I found an email waiting on my phone, sent an hour earlier, easy to miss among the vendor confirmations.

*Subject: Gala headcount....quick update*

*We're at capacity two weeks early. Wanted you to see this before the vendor call tomorrow. Also.....if you're free Thursday evening, Priya found us a slot with the florist to finalize centerpieces before the price locks in. Let me know if that works, or if there's a better night.*

*Kael*

I read it twice, it was nothing, on the surface. A scheduling note, the kind of email that would have meant nothing at all a few months ago.

Except Thursday evening was tonight. And some part of me, uninvited and unwelcome, wondered if he'd chosen that night on purpose.....knowing, somehow, exactly what kind of evening I might be having.

I didn't reply right away.

Instead I stood there in the hallway, phone in hand, Vivienne's warning still sitting cold in my chest, and realized I had absolutely no idea anymore whether I was more afraid of getting caught, or of how badly, in that moment, I wanted to say yes.