Chapter Ten

Isolde's POV

The Knight Holdings charity gala was held at the Aurelian Hotel, on the top floor, under a ceiling of crystal chandeliers so large they looked like frozen fireworks. I had never been in a room like it. I had been in rooms like it before, the kind with gold trim and champagne towers and women who talked without moving their mouths, but I had always been standing next to someone who did not want me there.

Tonight I stood next to Dacre, in a deep green dress that Marcus Hale had sent to my apartment that morning without a word. I had not asked for it. I had not asked for the apartment either, a bright little place two streets from the tower that Dacre had arranged so I would not have to take the bus. I had tried to refuse both. He had said, "It is a work expense," in a tone that closed the subject.

"You look," Marcus had said, looking me over once at the door, "adequate."

Coming from him it was practically a poem.

I was at the gala as Dacre's assistant. That was the story. I carried the guest list, a small leather folder, a phone with twelve numbers that I was supposed to call if anything went wrong. I greeted donors, smiled at the press, and remembered every name Marcus had drilled into me for three nights. For two hours it went almost perfectly.

Then the room began to slide sideways.

I felt it first in my knees. A soft, strange loosening, like the floor had turned to warm water. The chandeliers brightened and smeared. The voices around me thinned out and flattened, as if someone had put a glass over them. I reached for the nearest surface and found only air.

"Isolde."

Dacre's voice, from very far away. Then his hand on my arm, firm, and his other arm around my back, and the whole world tipped and went white.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on a sofa in a small, quiet room. The music was a dull thud through the wall. A lamp glowed in the corner. A woman in her fifties, with silver hair and a doctor's calm, sat beside me with two fingers on my wrist.

"There she is," the doctor said. "Slowly now. Do not sit up."

"What happened?"

"You fainted. Low blood sugar, mostly, and you've been on your feet for too long." She looked at me over the rim of her glasses. "Dr. Renata Voss. I am an old friend of Mr. Knight's. He carried you in here himself, and he has not let me close the door."

I turned my head. Dacre stood by the window with his back to us, his shoulders squared so stiffly I could see the tension in his coat. When I stirred, he turned, and his face was colorless.

"Leave us, please," he said to the doctor. "For a minute."

She raised an eyebrow, but went. The door clicked shut.

We were alone.

I tried to sit up and my head swam. He crossed the room in three steps and knelt in front of me, taking my hand in both of his. I had never seen him kneel to anyone. His fingers were ice cold.

"Isolde," he said, very low. "Tell me."

The word wanted to come out. I felt it climb my throat, five weeks of lies, the cracker in my handbag, the mouthwash in my drawer, the way I'd turned every cold shoulder into a smile.

"I'm pregnant," I whispered.

He closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I should have told you at the start. I didn't want you to think I'd lied to get the job. I swear I didn't know how to say it. I thought you would send me away."

"Look at me."

I did. His gray eyes were fierce and bright and something in them was wet.

"I am not sending you away."

"You don't have to be kind."

"I am not being kind." His grip tightened. "Who knows?"

"Only my grandmother. And now you."

"And the father?"

"No." The word came out hard. "He doesn't know. He never will."

"Is it that man," Dacre said slowly. "The one who was at the charity dinner."

I nodded.

I watched something cross his face, an old, deep anger, quickly buried. He let go of my hand, stood, and walked to the window, and for a long time he said nothing at all. The music pulsed through the wall. Down in the street, a car horn blew twice.

"I should tell you something," I said, because the silence was too heavy. "I was not honest about how it ended. He didn't leave me for someone else in secret. He brought her home. He handed me the papers in front of her and watched me sign. I was carrying his child when I signed. He did not see it. He didn't want to see it."

Dacre turned.

"He is a fool," he said.

"He's my ex husband."

"He is a fool," Dacre repeated, quietly, "and the greatest loss of his life is standing in this room, and he will find that out in his own time. But that is not your burden." He took two steps toward me, and stopped. "You are not alone anymore, Isolde. I mean that. You do not have to carry any of this by yourself."

My eyes stung. I looked down at my hands.

"I don't know how to accept that."

"Then we will learn it slowly."

Something broke in me then, quietly, like a thread finally giving. I covered my face with my hands and let myself cry. Not the ugly, shaking sobs of the night of the divorce. Just tears, warm and silent, falling into my palms. Dacre stood there, not touching me, not speaking, just present, and after a minute I realized that was exactly what I needed.

When I looked up, he held out the white handkerchief from his pocket.

"Thank you," I said.

"Dr. Voss will see you properly tomorrow. A driver will bring you. I will rearrange your schedule." He stopped, almost smiling. "Do not argue."

"I wasn't going to."

"That would be a first."

I laughed. It came out wet and cracked and wonderful.

That was when the door opened.

I thought it was the doctor. Dacre turned, his shoulders going tight, and I saw his hand clench at his side. A low, familiar voice cut across the room, the one I had heard every morning for five years and had hoped never to hear again.

"Isolde?"