Chapter 3 ⋆˚࿔
“What was Celeste wearing when she died?”
The question left my mouth somewhere between Adrian pouring wine and me pretending I hadn’t spent the entire day rehearsing how casually I might ask it.
Across the table, every trace of warmth disappeared from his face.
Not slowly.
One second Adrian was looking at me with the faint amusement he’d worn since I told him his chef had put entirely too much effort into a salad. The next, he had gone so still that I heard the soft hiss of the gas fireplace behind him.
I immediately regretted asking.
Not because of the anonymous message.
Because I had hurt him.
“Claire.”
There was no accusation in my name, which somehow made it worse.
I looked down at my plate. “Sorry. That came out strangely.”
“It didn’t come out strangely.” Adrian set the wine bottle aside without filling his own glass. “It was a very specific question.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
I had prepared for that too.
Apparently not well enough.
Adrian’s penthouse stretched around us in quiet planes of glass, stone, and city light. Beyond the windows, downtown glittered beneath a clear night sky. I had eaten at this table dozens of times. Left books on his sofa. Fallen asleep in his bed. Walked barefoot through the kitchen at midnight while wearing one of his shirts.
Nothing about this room had ever felt dangerous.
Yet I suddenly became acutely aware of my phone inside my handbag on the counter.
The message waiting there.
ASK ADRIAN WHAT I WAS WEARING WHEN I DIED.
“I was reading about her,” I said.
Adrian’s gaze remained on me.
“Celeste?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The second question was quieter than the first.
I pushed a piece of lettuce around my plate. “Wedding stuff.”
“Wedding stuff.”
I looked up. “You’re making it sound more suspicious than it is.”
“I haven’t made it sound like anything.”
That was Adrian’s particular talent. He could strip every emotion from his voice and somehow make silence feel like cross-examination.
I took a sip of wine.
“There was an article about your first wedding,” I said. “I ended up clicking through some other things. One of them mentioned the accident.”
Not entirely a lie.
I had read several articles.
Just not because I had been researching wedding traditions.
Adrian leaned back slightly.
“And the article made you wonder what Celeste was wearing?”
When he put it that way, it sounded ridiculous.
“I don’t know. It mentioned some of her belongings being recovered.”
His expression changed again.
Barely.
But I knew him well enough to catch it.
“You read that today?”
“Yes.”
Another lie.
The article had been last night.
I hated how easily they were coming.
Adrian looked toward the windows.
For several seconds, I thought he might simply refuse to continue the conversation. Then he rubbed his thumb slowly along the edge of the table.
“I identified her belongings.”
Something about the sentence made my chest tighten.
I had imagined police officers. Family representatives. Some anonymous official handling the uglier details because men like Adrian Vale could pay other people to handle almost anything.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
His eyes stayed on the city.
“The car burned. There wasn’t…” He stopped.
I waited.
Adrian almost never searched for words. Hearing him do it now felt intrusive, as though I had opened a door without permission.
“There were things the police needed confirmed,” he finished. “Her purse. Jewelry. Clothing. Items recovered from the vehicle.”
Guilt crawled through me.
“Adrian, I’m sorry.”
He looked at me again.
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Probably not.”
I deserved that.
I put my fork down. “Forget it.”
His jaw shifted.
“I don’t discuss that night because there is nothing useful in discussing it.”
There was something raw beneath the statement, carefully contained.
“You don’t owe me details.”
“I know.”
“And I wasn’t trying to—”
“I know that too.”
His hand crossed the table and covered mine.
The contact startled me after the coldness of the last few minutes.
His thumb moved once across my knuckles.
“This isn’t about you, Claire.”
“I still brought it up.”
“Yes.”
“You’re terrible at making people feel better.”
“I wasn’t attempting to make you feel better.”
Despite myself, I gave a small laugh.
There he was.
Not completely, but enough.
Adrian lifted my hand and pressed his mouth briefly against my fingers.
“If something about Celeste is bothering you, ask me.”
The invitation landed harder than it should have.
I could tell him.
Right now.
There was still time to walk into the kitchen, retrieve my phone, and put it in front of him.
Someone was pretending to be his dead wife.
Someone had specifically instructed me to ask this question.
Someone wanted something from me.
But I remembered how quickly Adrian had transformed poisoned flowers sent to an executive’s wife last year into a security operation involving three countries and more personnel than seemed reasonable.
This was still just a text.
Cruel, invasive, unsettling.
But a text.
If I showed him now, I would lose control of it before I even knew whether there was anything to investigate.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Adrian studied me for one beat too long.
Then he released my hand.
“Good.”
Too easy.
I felt it immediately.
He had accepted my explanation.
Except Adrian did not accept weak explanations.
He dismantled them.
It was practically a hobby.
Yet he resumed dinner, asked whether I had made a decision about the rehearsal dinner menu, and never returned to Celeste.
He also never answered my question.
Not once did he tell me what she had been wearing.
By the time I got home, that omission bothered me more than his initial reaction.
I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and changed into sleep shorts and an old university T-shirt. Ordinary rituals. Familiar rooms.
I told myself the same thing I had told myself yesterday.
There was an explanation.
Someone knew Celeste.
Someone had read the same reports I had.
Someone was trying to unsettle me because Adrian Vale’s private life had become public entertainment.
I plugged my phone into the charger.
The screen lit up.
One new message.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
HE DIDN’T ANSWER, DID HE?
