Chapter 27: A Dangerous Bargain

She told Caelum she was visiting a friend.

He’d kissed her forehead and told her to be back before lunch. And she’d smiled, picked up her bag, and walked out of the estate.

The café was a twenty-minute drive, but it felt longer. She spent it with both hands on her bag and her eyes on the road ahead.

Evelyn Crowe was already there when she arrived.

Same corner table and same leather notebook open in front of her. She had the same watchful eyes that didn’t give anything away easily. She looked up when Arwen walked in and didn’t smile.

“You came alone.” It wasn’t a question.

“I said I would.” Arwen sat across from her and kept her bag on her lap. “Let’s not drag this out... what exactly do you want?”

“Hey, calm down.” Evelyn said, pretending to set a pleasant atmosphere, when she was actually hunting for a prey. “You can order something, so it'd look like we are having lunch.”

“I don't have the luxury of time,” Arwen said, bracing herself to handle whatever the journalist had coming for her. 

Evelyn stared at her for a while. “Okay,” she turned the notebook around.

Two signatures side by side, both labeled with dates. Both, apparently, belonged to the same woman.

“The one on the left is from your prenuptial agreement,” Evelyn said. “The one on the right is from the charity gala document in March. I had two handwriting analysts look at them separately.” She tapped the page.

Arwen looked at the signatures for a long moment.

“Stress can affect handwriting,” she said, hoping those words made sense.

“It affects pressure and spacing. It doesn’t change the way someone forms the base of a lowercase e.” Evelyn pulled the notebook back. “Whoever signed the March document was learning the signature.”

Arwen said nothing.

“I’m not here to blow anything up,” Evelyn said, quieter now. “I’m here because something about this whole story doesn’t sit right. I’ve been a journalist long enough to know that when a picture doesn’t fit its frame, there’s a reason.” She paused. “I want an off the record context. Nothing attributed and nothing printed. Just enough to help me understand what I’m actually looking at.”

“And what if I give you that?”

“The signature story stays in my notebook.”

“For how long?”

Evelyn met her eyes. “Long enough for it to stop mattering.”

Arwen set her bag down on the floor. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about Isolde.” Evelyn’s pen didn’t move yet. “Not the society page version, the real one.”

“What?“ Arwen’s mind was racing.

Has Evelyn figured who she really was?

“I know you're not Isolde... so please tell me.”

Arwen was quiet for a moment, trying to process the question.

She thought about last night. How Caelum’s hand was warm against her back as they walked into the estate. The way he’d leaned down and said we’ll handle it together like it was the simplest fact in the world and he meant it all the way through.

She thought about how much he was trusting her right now without knowing what he was trusting.

“Isolde has always been impulsive,” she said carefully. “Not in a reckless way, but in the way of someone who has never once had to consider consequences because consequences never reached her.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “She’s genuinely magnetic. She can make an entire room feel like it was waiting for her to walk in. But she feels things in the moment and then she moves on. Commitments and promises feel real to her when she makes them. And then they just… don’t anymore.”

“So walking away from a wedding...”

“Would be completely in her nature.” Arwen held her gaze. “She’s done it before. The pattern has always been there.”

Evelyn wrote slowly. “And no one stopped her?”

“No one ever could.”

“Mm.” Evelyn turned a page. “Viktor Ashbourne made some interesting remarks at a private dinner last week. About the merger timeline and certain financial arrangements he found suspicious.” She glanced up briefly. “He seems very interested in the gap between who everyone says you are and who he thinks you actually might be.”

Something cold moved through Arwen’s chest.

“Viktor Ashbourne says whatever is useful to Viktor Ashbourne,” she said evenly. “I wouldn’t print anything that comes from him without independent confirmation.”

“I won't either.” Evelyn closed the notebook. “That’s why I’m sitting across from you instead of him.”

Arwen’s phone buzzed on the table.

She looked down.

How’s your friend?

It was from Caelum. Even his check-ins felt warm. The small, steady proof that he was thinking about her even when she wasn’t in the room.

She smiled slightly and turned the phone face down.

“Are we done?” she asked, putting on the careful, composed look back.

“Almost.” Evelyn tucked the notebook into her coat. She stood, unhurried, pulling her bag onto her shoulder. “You’re good at this, you know. Staying calm, giving just enough.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.” Evelyn buttoned her coat. “I think you’ve been doing it for a long time.”

Arwen stood and reached for her bag.

“For what it’s worth,” Evelyn said, moving toward the door, “whoever is feeding Viktor his information is going to run out of material soon. He’s fishing, but doesn’t have anything solid yet.”

“Good to know.”

Evelyn pushed the door open and paused with her back half-turned, like the thought had just occurred to her.

“He looks at you differently than he ever looked at her in the photos, you know.” Her voice was almost gentle. “Be careful that’s not the real story he can’t forgive.”

The door swung shut behind her.

Arwen stood alone in the middle of the café and didn’t move for a long moment.

She picked up her phone and typed back: She’s fine. On my way home.

Then she walked out into the cold, and the whole drive back she couldn’t stop hearing it.

The real story he can’t forgive.