CHAPTER NINE

Megan's POV

The house had been different all day, and I felt it before anyone said a word to me about why.

The staff moved faster than usual, polishing surfaces that were already spotless, arranging flowers in the dining room with the kind of care I hadn't seen them give anything since the wedding itself. Dorothy kept glancing at me throughout the afternoon with something that looked uncomfortably close to pity, though every time I caught her at it, she busied herself with something else before I could ask why.

It was Arian who finally told me, an hour before dinner, standing stiffly in the doorway of my room like the words cost him something to say.

"Chloe's joining us tonight," he said. "I should have told you sooner. I'm telling you now."

I already knew the name. I'd heard it in a hallway weeks ago, hushed and careful, a name the staff weren't supposed to say out loud. Hearing it now, finally attached to a face I hadn't seen yet, made my stomach drop in a way I wasn't prepared for.

"The one everyone's been so careful not to mention," I said.

Something flickered across his face — guilt, maybe, or the closest thing to it I'd seen from him. "It's complicated."

"It usually is with you," I said, and left it at that, because there wasn't time to unpack whatever that comment actually meant before I had to go downstairs and meet her.

I heard her before I saw her — a bright, easy laugh drifting up from the front hall, the kind of laugh that belonged to someone who had never once doubted her welcome anywhere she walked into. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, she was already crossing the marble floor straight toward Arian, arms open, moving like she'd done this exact walk a hundred times before.

"Arian!" She threw her arms around him before he could so much as step back, holding on a beat longer than any greeting required, her face pressed close to his shoulder. "God, I've missed this house. I've missed you."

He stood there stiffly, arms not quite returning the embrace, but he didn't pull away either — not fast enough, not clean enough, and I felt something small and unwelcome twist in my chest watching it happen from the stairs, even though I had no right to feel anything about it at all. This was fake. All of it. I reminded myself of that fact so quickly and so forcefully that it almost worked.

Almost.

Chloe finally stepped back, smoothing her dress, and it was only then that her eyes found me on the stairs — a slow, deliberate once-over, the kind that made me acutely aware of every inch of the dress I'd chosen, every choice I'd made that afternoon suddenly feeling inadequate under her gaze.

"So this is her," she said, smiling in a way that didn't reach her eyes at all. "Megan, was it?"

"It is," I said, coming down the last few stairs, extending a hand she looked at for a beat too long before taking it.

"Well." Her grip was light, dismissive, gone almost as soon as it started. "I have to say, when I heard Arian finally settled down, you were not exactly who I pictured."

"People rarely are," I said, keeping my voice even, refusing to give her the reaction she was clearly fishing for.

Dinner was its own quiet torment. Chloe sat close to Arian, closer than the seating arrangement strictly required, filling every silence with stories from years I hadn't been present for — trips, parties, inside jokes delivered with a look toward Arian that excluded me by design rather than accident. The staff, I noticed, moved around her with an ease and familiarity they'd never once shown me, refilling her glass before she asked, remembering exactly how she took her tea without being told.

"It's funny," she said at one point, swirling her wine, eyes flicking toward me with practiced casualness. "The Carusso name has such a particular weight to it. I always assumed whoever Arian married would come from somewhere that could actually carry it." A small, apologetic smile, the kind designed to look kind while doing exactly the opposite. "No offense, of course. I'm sure you're doing your best."

"Chloe," Arian said, a warning in his voice.

"What? I'm only being honest." She turned that same smile on me, sharper now. "Honesty is a gift, don't you think, Megan?"

I held her gaze and said nothing, because I refused to let her see exactly how deep that particular gift had managed to cut.

The rest of dinner passed in a blur of comments I could only half absorb, each one small enough to seem harmless on its own and devastating in accumulation. By the time Chloe finally announced she needed to freshen up before dessert, I excused myself as well, desperate for even five minutes of air that didn't have her name attached to it.

I found Arian in the hallway outside the study instead of returning straight to the table, and for one brief, stupid moment I felt something like relief at the sight of him — until I saw he wasn't alone.

Chloe stood in front of him, close, far closer than freshening up required, one hand resting flat against his chest like she had every right to be touching him at all. She was saying something too quiet for me to hear, her face tilted up toward his, and Arian wasn't stepping back.

I stood frozen in the hallway, unseen, watching a scene that shouldn't have meant anything to me at all , a fake marriage, a business arrangement, nothing real on either side , and yet I felt something crack open in my chest that had no business being there in the first place.

I turned and walked away before either of them noticed me standing there, my heart pounding for reasons I refused to name, wondering exactly how much of tonight I'd only seen the beginning of.