Claimed by the Untouchable: After the Divorce

Celia's POV

The champagne was warm.

I'd been holding the same glass for forty minutes, smiling at people whose names I knew but whose faces I'd long since stopped bothering to distinguish. Another industry mixer, another ballroom full of people in Valentino and Prada saying very little while implying a great deal.

Kent stood twenty feet away, working the room the way he always did — hand extended before the other person even turned around, that slow grin spreading across his face like he'd just thought of the most genuinely delightful thing. He was good at this. I used to think it was charm. Now I recognized it for what it was: a performance rehearsed so many times it had become indistinguishable from instinct.

"Celia, you look stunning tonight." Blair Ashworth materialized at my elbow, her smile wide enough to be photographed. Beauty director at some mid-tier trade publication — the kind that survives on advertorial revenue and industry gossip. "That dress is Oscar de la Renta?"

"Valentino," I said.

"Of course, of course." She touched my arm the way people do when they want credit for warmth without actually committing to it. "Kent must be so proud. You two are really the couple of the moment."

I nodded. I smiled. I said something forgettable about being grateful for the support. Then I watched her drift toward a cluster of editors near the bar, lean in close, and say something that made the whole group laugh. One of them glanced over. Blair didn't bother.

Four years of this. Four years of smiling at women like Blair while they complimented my dress to my face and picked apart my marriage the moment I turned away. Four years of being the decoration on Kent's arm at events exactly like this one — useful, presentable, and entirely beside the point.

I was done with the room. Honestly, I was done with myself for still showing up to it.

I grabbed a fresh glass of champagne from a passing tray, took one sip, and put it right back down. The tightness in my chest had been building for the last hour in the specific way it always did at these things — not grief exactly, more like the slow accumulation of a hundred small humiliations finally hitting critical mass all at once. I turned and walked toward the terrace doors. Not quickly enough to look like I was fleeing.

But I was absolutely fleeing.

The garden was quiet. String lights threaded through trimmed hedges, the party behind me reduced to a muffled hum on the other side of the glass. The cold hit the moment I stepped outside — sharper than I'd expected for October. I pulled my wrap tighter and walked to the far edge of the hedge wall, where the ballroom light didn't quite reach.

It helped. The tightness in my chest loosened just enough to breathe around.

That's when I heard it — a small, hitching sound near the hedge to my left. Not quite crying. The exhausted kind, after the loud part is already over.

She was tucked against the base of the greenery, knees pulled to her chest, head down. Small — four, maybe just past it. Dark hair falling out of a careful updo, a silver barrette sliding loose near her temple. A navy dress with a white sash gone half-untied. Someone had put effort into how she looked tonight, and the evening had undone most of it.

I crouched down a few feet away and waited. Let her decide.

She looked up before I said anything. Face blotchy, eyes swollen, but the look she gave me was sharp — the wariness of a kid who'd actually internalized the stranger danger talk.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you," she said. Hoarse, but steady.

"That's a good rule," I said.

That threw her. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and studied me, trying to locate the catch.

"You're not going to make me?"

"Nope."

She pulled her knees in tighter. The barrette slipped another inch and she didn't bother with it.

"I lost my family," she said. Flat and matter-of-fact, the way kids talk when the panic has burned off and left something quieter behind. "We were all inside and then I went to look at the fountain. It had lights in it — blue ones that changed colors. And when I turned around, everybody was gone."

"How long have you been out here?"

"A long time." Her eyes went to the terrace doors. "I knocked but nobody heard. And the handle is too high."

"I can get the handle," I said. "I'll go in with you."

The wariness recalibrated. Less stranger, more potential solution. She looked at my outstretched hand, then back at my face.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Ivy," she said.

She reached up and took my hand. Firm grip, no hesitation. Once she'd decided, she was done second-guessing. Her fingers were cold and smaller than I'd expected.

"Okay," she said. "Let's go."

I stood and she stood with me, still holding on. Just a lost kid who'd wandered outside to look at a fountain and couldn't find her way back. That was all this was.

I pulled open the terrace door and walked her in.

The noise hit us the moment we stepped back through the terrace doors — sound, heat, the competing perfumes of two hundred people in a closed space. Ivy pressed closer to my side without seeming to notice she was doing it, her fingers tightening around mine.

I started scanning the room. Main tables near the stage, photographer working the far corner, the bar area along the—

Ivy stopped walking.

I felt it through her hand before I looked up. Every muscle in that small body went absolutely still. Then something shifted — the stillness broke open all at once, the way it does when fear becomes something else entirely. Her chin came up. Her eyes went wide and bright, catching the light like she'd just seen the only thing in the room that mattered.

I followed her gaze.

Kent was at the bar. Jacket off, sleeves rolled, one arm resting easy on the counter, laughing at something the man beside him had said.

He hadn't seen us.

Ivy's grip on my hand loosened. Not letting go — just forgetting, the way kids do when something bigger than manners takes over. She rose up slightly on her toes. The half-untied sash swayed. The barrette slipped the rest of the way and neither of us caught it.

"Daddy."