Chapter 8
Vivian did not speak to Cedric for three days.
I did not blame her.
Maisie stayed in our guest suite with Flora, who refused to leave her side.
The wedding was postponed.
The marriage license remained unsigned.
I expected Vivian to walk away from all of us.
Instead, she came to my study on the fourth morning.
Her eyes were swollen.
Her voice was steady.
“I need to know whether you still want to marry into this family.”
I looked at her.
“I wanted to marry you. Not your family.”
She laughed once.
Painfully.
“I don’t know who I am now.”
“You are the woman who stood between your mother and a child.”
She looked down.
“That doesn’t erase what I didn’t see.”
“No.”
She nodded.
“Good. I’m tired of erasing things.”
Detective Harris called at noon.
Portia had lawyered up.
Carlo, her brother, had disappeared.
Financial records showed payments to a private investigator, a retired doctor, and a funeral home.
Funeral home.
My blood went cold.
Elena.
Celia.
Maybe both.
Maisie sat in the garden that afternoon, drawing a house with no doors.
I asked why.
“So nobody can lock them.”
I sat beside her.
“Would windows help?”
She thought about that.
“Big ones.”
So I drew windows.
Terribly.
She laughed.
A small laugh.
The first one.
Vivian watched from the terrace and cried quietly.
That night, she removed her wedding ring from the box and placed it in my palm.
“Not yet,” she said.
I closed my fingers around it.
“Not yet is not no.”
May you like
She nodded.
“I hope not.”
