Fifteen

ARIANA 

The wine had dried stiff against my dress by the time I came back down.

I'd changed into something plain — one of the dresses Angela had left in the closet, nothing anyone would look at twice. I'd wiped my face, fixed my hair, and told myself I was only going back down to find Jack. To tell him what I'd seen. To tell him about the man in the corridor, the man in the dark room, the man whose face I still couldn't shake.

That was the plan.

Then I stepped into the hall.

Most of the guests were gone. Staff were clearing glasses off the long table, folding napkins, carrying trays back toward the kitchen. The music had stopped. The chandeliers were still on, but dimmer now, like the house itself was getting ready for bed.

Skylark was still there.

She stood near the head of the table, one hand resting on the back of Romano's chair, the other holding a fresh glass. She wasn't looking at anyone in particular. She was just — waiting. The way she always waited.

I slowed.

Jack was walking in from the far side of the room. He saw Skylark. He saw Romano still seated at the head of the table. I watched him clock both of them in half a second, and I watched his stride change — just slightly, just enough.

Skylark smiled.

"Jack." Her voice carried. "I noticed you're already leaving."

He didn't answer.

She turned her head toward Romano.

"Father-in-law." She said it sweetly. Deliberately. "Don't you think we should discuss the wedding plans?"

Jack stopped.

I stopped too. I was near the wall, half-hidden behind a pillar, and nobody had noticed me yet. I should have walked in. I should have announced myself. I didn't.

I stayed where I was and listened.

Romano cleared his throat.

Slowly. The way he did everything.

"Yes," he said.

He looked up at Jack. His eyes were calm. His hands were folded on the table.

"Yes, Jack. I think it's time we talked about the wedding." He tilted his head. "You seem to be away from home a lot these days."

He let that sit.

"Where are you going, son?"

Jack didn't move.

I could see his shoulders from where I stood. I could see the line of his back. He didn't flinch. He didn't answer right away. He just stood there, under his father's eyes, in a room that had gone very quiet.

"Yes," Romano said again, softer now. "Sit down."

Skylark pulled out the chair beside her. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

Jack looked at the chair.

Then he looked at his father.

Then — for half a second — his eyes moved across the room.

They landed on me.

I didn't breathe.

He looked away.

He walked to the chair and sat down.

Skylark sat beside him. Romano smiled. The three of them sat at the head of the table like a family, and the staff kept clearing glasses around them, and nobody in the room said a word about the woman standing half-hidden behind a pillar with her hands pressed flat against the cold stone.

I turned around.

I walked back the way I came.

He had seen me.

And he'd still chosen to sit down.

__

JACK 

The chair was cold.

I sat with my back straight and my hands flat on the table, the way I'd been taught to sit when I was seven years old and Romano was still teaching me how to be a son. Skylark was already talking. She'd been talking before I even sat down.

"—and I was thinking the reception could be held here. The garden, under the lights. It would be beautiful in September, don't you think?"

Romano nodded. Slow. His eyes were on me, not on her.

"The garden works," he said.

"I'll need the guest list finalized by Friday," Skylark went on. She was writing things down now, on a small cream card, with a pen that had appeared from somewhere. Her handwriting was neat. Of course it was. "The caterer needs two weeks' notice. And I'll need to confirm the florist."

She looked up at me, smiling.

"What colors do you like, Jack?"

I didn't answer.

She didn't wait for one.

"White, then. It's traditional."

She kept writing.

I looked past her — across the room, over her shoulder, at the staff clearing the last of the glasses off the long table. At the doors the guests had gone out through. At the pillar near the far wall where, a few minutes ago, I had seen Ariana standing, half-hidden, watching me sit down at this table.

She wasn't there anymore.

I'd seen her. I know I'd seen her. Her face, in the light from the hallway, and then nothing.

I wondered if she'd gone back to her room.

I wondered what she'd heard.

"Jack."

Romano's voice.

I looked at him.

"September," my father said. "The fifteenth. That works."

"No."

The word came out of me before I knew I was going to say it.

Skylark's pen stopped.

Romano's eyes didn't move.

"No?" he said.

"That's too close."

Skylark looked at me. Then at Romano. Then back at me.

"Too close?" She laughed — a short, bright, dismissive sound. "It's a wedding, Jack, not a business merger. We've been planning this for months."

"Two weeks isn't planning. It's rushing."

"Why are you rushing?" she asked.

"I'm not."

"Then what's the problem?"

I didn't answer.

Romano hadn't said anything. He was just watching me. That was worse than if he'd yelled. He watched the way he always watched — like I was a document he was reading for the third time, looking for a clause that had changed.

"Jack."

I looked at him.

"Son."

The word sat in the room. He used it like a tool. He always had.

"What's come over you?"

I didn't answer.

"You've been away from the house more. You miss meetings. You don't answer your phone." He paused. "You brought a woman into my home last week and you haven't explained who she is."

"That has nothing to do with this."

"Everything has to do with this."

Skylark had gone still. She wasn't writing anymore. She was watching us the way she watched everyone — quietly, calculating, filing things away.

Romano leaned forward, just slightly. His voice stayed soft. That's how I knew he was serious.

"Are you seeing someone else?"

The room went quiet.

I didn't answer.

I could have said no. That was the plan. That was always the plan — agree with Romano until you didn't have to, then take what you needed and disappear. I'd done it my whole life. He'd taught me how.

But I didn't say no.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

Skylark's pen clicked against the table.

And nobody in that room moved.