The calendar alert vanished from her screen. 7 PM. Showtime.
Audrey took one last look in the mirror. The woman staring back was a stranger in a green silk shell. Her eyes were hollow, but her lipstick was a defiant slash of red. War paint.
She would not hide. She would not crumble. She would not give Beatrice Sterling the satisfaction.
She grabbed her clutch, the cool metal a comfort in her trembling hand, and walked out of the apartment, locking the door on the ghost of the woman she used to be.
The air in the hallway was thick with the scent of her neighbor’s cooking, a normalcy that felt like a mockery. She walked to the elevator, her heels clicking a steady, resolute rhythm on the floor.
She was descending into the battlefield.
She pushed through the heavy lobby doors and stepped onto the sidewalk. The evening was cool, the city lights just beginning to bleed into the twilight sky. She raised her hand to hail a cab, a soldier ready for the fight.
A long black car slid silently to the curb, blocking her path.
The back door opened.
Kian got out.
He looked like he’d been dragged through hell. His hair was a mess, his face was pale and drawn, and the expensive-looking sweater he wore was rumpled. He hadn’t shaved. The desperate man had replaced the prince in the tuxedo.
He moved to stand in front of her, blocking her way. A desperate, human wall.
“Audrey.” Her name was a raw wound. “I knew you’d be coming out. I’ve been waiting.”
She said nothing. She simply looked at him, her expression a blank sheet of ice.
“You blocked my number,” he said, his voice ragged. “I get it. But you have to let me explain. You have to listen to me.”
“I’ve listened enough,” she said, her own voice startling her with its coldness. “I’m done listening to lies.”
“It’s not a lie,” he pleaded, taking a step closer. She didn’t move back. She wouldn’t give him an inch. “It’s a manipulation. A trap. My mother set the whole thing up.”
Audrey gave a short, bitter laugh. “Your mother. Of course. The all-powerful Beatrice, pulling the strings. It’s a convenient excuse, isn’t it? Blame the evil matriarch for your secret family.”
Pain flashed in his eyes. “She’s not my family. Not like that. Audrey, you are my…”
She cut him off. She didn’t want to hear the lie. She couldn’t bear it.
She pulled out her phone, her movements sharp and precise. She navigated to the tabloid article and held the screen up to his face. The picture of Cassandra and the little boy glowed in the fading light.
“I only have one question, Kian.”
He stared at the screen, his jaw clenching.
“Is that little boy your son?”
The world stopped. The traffic, the city noise, the hurried footsteps of strangers—it all faded away. There was only her question, hanging in the air between them like a guillotine.
He looked from the phone to her face, his eyes begging her to understand something he refused to say. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He ran a hand through his already messy hair.
“It’s… it’s not that simple,” he finally choked out.
The evasion was worse than a confession. It was confirmation. It was proof.
“Not simple?” Audrey’s voice was dangerously low. “It seems like the simplest question in the world. A yes or a no. You’re a father, or you aren’t. Which is it?”
“You don’t understand what she’s capable of,” he said, his voice dropping to a desperate rasp. “To explain it, I’d have to… It would sound insane. She paid her. She orchestrated the entire scene. The boy is…”
He stopped again. Tight-lipped. Trapped. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, to lay the whole ugly, unbelievable conspiracy at her feet right here on the street. And in his hesitation, Audrey found her answer.
He couldn’t deny it. Because it was true.
The last flicker of hope inside her died, leaving nothing but cold ash. She felt the tiny flutter in her womb, a secret life that connected her to this man, this stranger. What did this mean for her baby? To be the second child? The secret one? The one whose mother wasn’t a sad-eyed ghost from his past?
The thought solidified her resolve into something unbreakable.
She lowered the phone and slid it back into her clutch. The click of the clasp was a sound of finality.
“I have my answer,” she said.
“No,” he said, reaching for her arm. “Audrey, that’s not the answer. The answer is I love you.”
She pulled her arm away as if his touch were fire. “Don’t you dare say that to me. Not now.”
She glanced down at the ridiculously expensive watch on his wrist, the one from the photo. Then she looked at her own.
“I’m going to be late.”
He stared at her, utterly bewildered. “Late? Late for what? Audrey, our lives are exploding. We need to fix this.”
A cab slowed, its light on. She met the driver’s eyes and gave a sharp nod.
She turned back to Kian, a ghost of a smile on her painted lips. It was the cruelest expression she had ever worn.
“I’m late for the opening of my exhibit,” she said, her voice clear and steady. “The culmination of my life’s work. The one thing that’s mine. The one thing that’s real.”
She let her eyes sweep over his designer sweater, his watch, the waiting town car.
“Some of us have to fight for what we have. We can’t just inherit it.”
The words hit him like a physical blow. He staggered back a step, his face ashen.
The taxi pulled up to the curb.
Audrey walked past him without another word. She opened the door and slid inside, the worn seat a welcome reality.
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” she told the driver.
She didn’t look back, but she could feel Kian’s eyes on the car as it pulled away from the curb. She could feel his desperation, his confusion, his defeat.
She stared straight ahead, her hands clenched in her lap, her knuckles white. She was a queen going to her coronation. A martyr walking to her execution.
The emerald gown was her armor. The lipstick was her war paint. And her heart, the one he had so casually broken, was a cold, heavy stone in her chest.