SIX

ELENA

The restaurant on Boulevard Street glowed softly when I arrived, golden light spilling through the windows, warm and inviting. My hands were slick as I gripped the door handle, my pulse pounding like a warning drum.

This is it, I told myself. Just go in. Smile. Be patient. Fix this.

I pushed open the door.

And then—

All the carefully rehearsed words crumbled in my throat.

“Hi, long time!” Isabelle’s voice cut through me like a blade dipped in honey. Before I could even gather myself, her manicured hand closed around mine, tugging me deeper inside. Her grip was firm, rehearsed, like she had been waiting for this moment.

In my awkward stumble, my belly brushed against the edge of a nearby table, nearly knocking it over. The plates rattled loudly, water sloshing in glasses, and half the restaurant turned to stare. Heat burned up my neck, embarrassment rising like bile. But I barely noticed their whispers, because my mind screamed with a single thought.

Her. Of all people… it had to be her.

Isabelle Blake, perched in front of me like a queen making room at her throne. That long slit skirt of hers clung to her legs, and her perfume, God, her perfume hit me in suffocating waves. It was the same one Damian used to bring home on his shirts, back when he still let me touch his shirts at all.

“Damian is very busy,” she said, sweet as poison, motioning for me to sit. “And he doesn’t want to… see you, so it’s better for me to say some things on his behalf.”

For a second, I thought I’d misheard. I laughed, sharp and ugly, though my throat tightened as if it were being strangled.

“I’m sorry, you speak on his behalf now?” I sank into the chair across from her, more because my knees buckled than from obedience.

Isabelle tilted her head, smile gleaming, every word dripping with the satisfaction of a cat playing with a trapped mouse.

“Damian said there is no love between you at all, and he wants to divorce you. But now that you are pregnant…” her eyes flicked deliberately to my stomach, “…he is afraid you’ll be upset. So he has to put it on hold for now.”

Each syllable landed like a stone against my chest. My hands slid over my belly instinctively, protective, as if I could shield the child inside me from her words. My ears buzzed, the restaurant noise fading into a dull roar.

She leaned forward, her fingers tightening around my hand with faux intimacy.

“But I finally got back to him,” she whispered, as though we were co-conspirators sharing a secret, “and I don’t want to waste time waiting. Please do me a favour…” her smile widened, “and divorce him, okay?”

I stared at her perfectly painted nails wrapped around my trembling fingers, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. Somewhere in my head, sarcasm bloomed like a bitter rose.

But all that came out of my mouth was silence. My chest rose and fell, trying to process the absurdity of sitting across from my husband’s ex, listening to her map out the ruins of my marriage as if it were a polite business arrangement.

Divorce? No feelings at all? The words scraped in my mind, raw and unbelieving. My hand jerked back from Isabelle’s grip as if she had burned me. The motion was sharper than I intended, and in the same instant, there was the crash of shattering glass.

Isabelle’s scream pierced through the restaurant, drawing every eye. And there she was, collapsed in a heap of satin and perfume, arms scratched from the glass.

The wine spread beneath her, a scarlet halo that looked almost like blood. For a second, the sight twisted my stomach.

I pressed a hand against the edge of the table to steady myself, my body heavier, slower with the child I carried. My knees protested as I pushed myself upright. My instinct, damn it, was still to help her. To reach out, to pull her up, because despite everything, compassion was stitched into me like an incurable flaw.

But the moment my fingers stretched towards her, Isabelle flinched back violently, eyes wide as though I were some monster.

“Please don’t hit me!” she shrieked, her voice high-pitched, desperate, the kind that made onlookers gasp and whisper.

I froze, shock slicing through me. Hit her? My hand trembled in the air, halfway between her and my chest. For a beat, I couldn’t even find my voice. Is this really happening? Is she performing this scene?

I opened my mouth, desperate to explain, to deny, but then came the sound that made my heart drop straight into my stomach.

“Elena, are you crazy?!”