Chapter 8: What Vivienne Saw

Aurelia's POV

"We should go back in," I said, already moving toward the door before he could answer.

"Aurelia."

I stopped with my hand on the handle. "What?"

"Whatever she thinks she saw," Kael said quietly, "let her think it. Don't give her anything else to work with by looking guilty."

"I'm not guilty of anything."

"I know that. She doesn't."

He was right, and I hated that he was right, and I hated more that some small, reckless part of me had wanted her to see it. I smoothed the front of my dress, arranged my face into something neutral, and walked back into the dining room like I hadn't just spent five minutes on a terrace forgetting I was anyone's wife at all.

Vivienne was waiting by the windows, a fresh glass of wine in her hand, watching our return with the patient stillness of a woman who already had her verdict written and was simply waiting for us to catch up to it.

"There you are," she said, to me, not to Kael. "I was beginning to think you'd wandered off."

"I needed air."

"Did you." She let the words sit there a moment, unhurried. "Kael was kind enough to keep you company, I see."

"I happened to step out at the same time," Kael said, coming to stand a careful, correct distance away. "The room was warm."

"Mm." Vivienne's eyes moved between us, slow, cataloguing. "How thoughtful of you both to notice that at exactly the same moment."

Nothing in her tone rose, nothing in her face changed. That was the part that frightened me.....she never needed to raise her voice to make a threat land, she simply set it down in front of you and waited to see who flinched first.

I didn't flinch and Kael didn't either but I felt the weight of her attention settle over both of us like something she intended to carry with her for a very long time.

"Aurelia." Cassian's voice cut through, welcome for once, oblivious in the way only Cassian could be. He crossed the room with two board members trailing behind him, his hand finding my back the way it had earlier.....a habit, not a comfort, though I let myself lean into it slightly for Vivienne's benefit. "There you are. I was just telling Harrison here you'll be running point on the gala."

"Running point," Vivienne repeated, an eyebrow lifting.

"She's been doing the work for three galas already," Cassian said, oblivious to the undertone in his mother's voice. "Might as well give her the title to match. Kael's division is footing half the guest list, so the two of them will need to coordinate closely over the next few weeks."

"How efficient," Vivienne said.

"I'll have my assistant send over the venue details," Kael said, perfectly level, perfectly professional, a man discussing a spreadsheet and nothing else. "Mrs. Blackthorne can loop me in whenever suits her schedule."

*Mrs. Blackthorne.* He'd started using it deliberately, I realized. A small, careful wall he was building between us in front of the one person in the room actively looking for cracks in it.

"I'll email you tomorrow," I said, matching his tone.

"Wonderful." Cassian squeezed my shoulder, already turning back toward Harrison, already three conversations ahead of this one in his mind. "Glad that's settled."

He walked off without waiting for a response, pulling the board members with him, leaving Vivienne standing there with her wine glass and her unhurried, terrible patience.

"How lucky," she said, once he was out of earshot, "that this family keeps finding new reasons to throw the two of you together."

"It's a work project, Vivienne."

"Of course it is." She took a slow sip of her wine. "I'm simply an old woman who notices things. You'll forgive me if I keep noticing."

She drifted off toward the bar without waiting for a reply, the way she always did, leaving her words behind like something she expected us to sit with long after she'd gone.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"She doesn't know anything," Kael said quietly, beside me again now that she was gone.

"She doesn't need to know anything. She just needs to suspect it enough to make it useful."

"Useful for what?"

"I don't know yet." I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the room. "That's what scares me."

*****

The drive home was quiet, Cassian sat beside me in the back of the car, scrolling through something on his phone, already half-checked-out of the evening the way he usually was by the time we left these things.

"Good turnout tonight," he said, not looking up.

"It was."

"Kael handled the Singapore questions well. Board seemed impressed."

"He's clearly good at his job."

"Mm." He kept scrolling. "You looked tense out there. On the terrace."

My whole body went still. "I needed air, it was warm in there."

"That's what he said too." Cassian finally glanced up, and for one terrible second I thought he'd seen something after all....but his expression held nothing sharper than mild, distracted curiosity. "You two really did step out at the same time, huh. Small world."

"It's a small terrace," I said, and he laughed, actually laughed, and went back to his phone like it was nothing at all.

I looked out the window at the city sliding past, relief and something colder tangled together in my chest. He hadn't seen it, he hadn't even come close to seeing it.

But Vivienne had.

And unlike her son, Vivienne never simply let a thing go because it was inconvenient to keep holding onto it.

*****

By the time we got home, it was nearly midnight. Cassian went straight to his study to answer emails he claimed couldn't wait until morning, I went upstairs alone, the way I usually did, and sat at my desk with my laptop open, staring at a blank email addressed to no one yet.

*Coordinate closely over the next few weeks*, Cassian had said, so pleased with himself for solving a scheduling problem he had no idea he'd just created.

I typed Kael's assistant's email address into the field, my fingers hovering over the keyboard for a long moment before I finally started typing.

*Happy to set up a time this week to go over gala logistics. Let me know what works for your schedule.*

I read it three times before I sent it, hunting for anything in it that could be misread, anything Vivienne could twist into more than what it was.

It was perfectly professional, it gave nothing away.

It still felt, somehow, like the most dangerous thing I'd typed in a long time.