Chapter 404

[ 1,054 words ]

Delia’s POV

I had not spoken to my parents since the night Katia stood in our sitting room and dismantled every version of the story I had been telling myself for two years. My father had not called. My mother had sent one text message in the weeks since, three words, ’Are you eating?’ which I had not answered. Inviting them meant standing in the same room as both of them for the first time since that night, watching them watch me try to rebuild something out of nothing.

I typed their names anyway. This was business. Business did not leave room for grudges, however deserved.

I worked through the rest of the list with the same brutal efficiency, every major family in Manhattan’s social circle, every donor with enough money to matter, and every journalist worth controlling rather than ignoring. By the time I finished, the spreadsheet stretched past two hundred names, exactly the kind of list Noah had told me to deliver.

My phone buzzed as I was finalizing the last few entries.

Katia.

I stared at the screen for a long moment before answering, some old instinct telling me to let it ring through to voicemail, a stronger instinct telling me that avoiding her call would only delay whatever this conversation actually needed to be.

“What do you want?” I said, answering without a greeting.

“I heard you are working for Vesper Group,” Katia said, her voice carrying none of the sharp edges I remembered from the sitting room. “I wanted to hear it from you directly rather than through gossip p>

“Is that all?” I asked.

“No,” Katia said. “I wanted to ask if you were alright. Despite everything, Delia, you are still my sister p>

Something in my chest tightened at that, unwelcome and complicated, the same feeling I had spent two years trying not to examine too closely whenever it surfaced around her.

“I do not need your concern,” I said.

“I did not say you needed it,” Katia said. “I said I wanted to offer it anyway p>

I looked back at the spreadsheet, at Julian’s name sitting there beside hers, official and permanent in a way my own name attached to his had never actually been.

“You will be receiving an invitation,” I said, changing the subject before I said something I would regret. “To the Vesper Group gala. I am running the event p>

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“You are inviting me,” Katia said, something careful entering her voice now.

“I am inviting everyone who matters,” I said. “You and Julian happen to fall into that category, whether either of us likes it p>

“Delia,” Katia said quietly. “Are you doing alright, truly p>

I closed my eyes for a moment, hating how much I wanted to answer that question honestly and hating even more the fact that some small, stubborn part of me still measured every room I walked into by whether Julian Windsor happened to be standing in it and still wondered, despite everything, despite the baby growing inside my own sister, whether there was some version of the future where he finally looked at me the way I had always wanted him to.

“I am fine,” I said instead. “I have to go. I have a gala to plan p>

I ended the call before she could say anything else, setting the phone face down on the desk and staring at the guest list still glowing on my screen, Windsor, Julian, and Katia sitting there at the very top, exactly where business demanded they belong, no matter how badly some part of me still wished otherwise.

I finished the last few entries in silence, adding notes on seating preferences and dietary restrictions, which families had feuds delicate enough to require careful placement across the room from one another. It was tedious work, the kind I had done a hundred times before as a hostess in a marriage that had never actually been real, and there was something almost soothing in the familiarity of it now, a task I actually knew how to do well regardless of everything else falling apart around me.

Adrian appeared in my doorway just as I finished, his expression as unreadable as it had been in our first meeting.

“How is the list coming,” he asked.

“Two hundred and twelve names,” I said. “Every family that matters, every donor worth the invitation, every journalist I need controlled rather than surprised. It will be on Mr. Vesper’s desk by tomorrow morning, ahead of the deadline p>

Adrian’s mouth curved slightly, the closest thing to approval I had seen from him yet.

“Good,” he said. “He will be pleased to hear that p>

“Which Mr. Vesper?” I asked. “The son, or the father who apparently does not exist to anyone outside this building p>

Something flickered behind Adrian’s eyes, gone too quickly for me to read it properly.

“Both,” he said simply, and left before I could press him further.

I sat alone in the office after he was gone, looking out at the city through the wide window behind my desk, the same skyline I had spent two years photographed against in a marriage that had never once belonged to me. Somewhere out there, Julian was building a life with Katia, a real one, a child on the way, a family assembling itself around the two of them the way I had always imagined it should have assembled around me instead.

I told myself it did not matter anymore.

I did not entirely believe it, but I told myself anyway, because the alternative, sitting with the full weight of everything I still felt for a man who had never once wanted me back, was not something I had the strength to examine tonight.

I saved the guest list, closed my laptop, and gathered my things, already thinking about the next five days, the venue walkthroughs, the security arrangements, the hundred small details that would determine whether this contract survived or collapsed the way everything else in my life had collapsed over the past several months.

For the first time in weeks, I had somewhere to be tomorrow morning that was not simply the empty apartment I had been hiding inside since the headlines started.

That would have to be enough for now.

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