Chapter 4

That weekend, Tess threw me a recovery dinner at the Aldwyn Club — just our circle, the girls she trusted, a booked private room and several bottles of wine.

We were three drinks in when the Pembertons showed up uninvited.

Adele, Celeste's older sister, came through the door first. She had a grip on Celeste's elbow and was pushing her forward like a child being made to apologize for breaking a window.

Celeste looked terrified of me.

"Vera — the other day — thank you. Thank you."

Every pair of eyes in the room slid sideways at once. Everyone was waiting to see what I'd do.

They had reason to. Everyone at this table had seen me humiliate Celeste in public at least once. I'd called her a snake. I'd called her a homewrecker. I'd called her worse.

And the truth is, I had my reasons.

Celeste had been the unwanted second daughter of the Pemberton family. Parents and older brother alike all doted on Adele — the pretty one, the sickly one, the one worth something. Celeste had spent most of her adolescence as Adele's live-in bone-marrow donor. Her purpose in life, as the Pembertons had laid it out, was to keep her sister alive.

One night she'd tried to run away from the hospital. Julian and I had been there for something unrelated and we'd walked straight into her escape attempt.

Julian had tried to pull me out of it. He knew what went on inside the Pembertons' house and he didn't want me dragged into it. He'd put a hand on my arm to hold me back.

I'd shaken him off. I'd gotten Celeste out.

The Ashfords were the kind of family every other family in Ravenport wanted to attach themselves to, and the Pembertons were no exception. When Celeste came home draped in my protection, her parents practically threw a party. They'd been thrilled. Their castoff daughter had climbed.

That Celeste, the one who used to hide behind me like a small, bony rabbit — I'd felt sorry for her. Long-term blood draws had left her hollow-cheeked and too thin. Tess and I used to send her boxes of chocolates, designer sweaters, anything we could think of.

She wasn't satisfied.

I'd treated her like a friend. I'd stood in ballrooms and told every gossip columnist in the city that Julian Ashford was mine, that we were engaged, that nothing could touch us.

And she'd gone after him anyway.

I lost my mind.

I'd been raised by Eleanor Ashford like a small, spoiled queen. I had a temper. And when a friend I'd saved from a hospital bed turned around and started sniffing after my fiancé, I could not take it.

I used Eleanor's name. I leaned on the Ashford weight. I forced the Pembertons to make Celeste kneel in the snow in their front courtyard for two hours as punishment.

Celeste's body couldn't take it. She was on her knees in the cold for maybe half an hour before she collapsed. The Pembertons rushed her to intensive care at St. Marlow's that same night.

That was the first time in our lives Julian had ever shouted at me.

"Vera! I warned you. I warned you not to touch her. Do you know what her life in that house is like? You have no idea how disappointed I am in you right now."

I remember the shock of it. I'd gone red and cold at the same time.

That was the first time I saw something close to tenderness in his eyes — and it was for her.

Afterward, he didn't speak to me for an entire month.

I cracked. I couldn't stand it. I promised him I'd never go near her again.

But Celeste — Celeste knew exactly what she was doing.

That Christmas, Julian asked me to go to her place with a gift and an apology. I went, because I loved him, and I would have crawled over broken glass if he'd asked.

The next morning, the tabloids ran the story that Celeste had "collapsed with a high fever" after I left. Rushed to the hospital. Nearly didn't make it.

Everyone — Julian included — decided I'd driven her to it.

I had no way to prove otherwise.

Months later, at one of the charity galas, I saw her again. I had my security push her down onto her knees in front of the entire room. I slapped her across the face twice, in front of every important family in Ravenport.

That was the night my marriage actually died, years before the ceremony.

....

"Miss Harrington?"

Adele's voice pulled me back into the room.

The past washed back out of me like a bad dream.

The Celeste standing in front of me now was alive. She wasn't dead in an alley yet. And Julian and I weren't monsters to each other yet.

I picked up my wineglass. Looked, over the rim, at the woman my future husband had spent an entire life missing.

"Don't thank me," I said, with a small, careful smile. "Julian saved you, not me. Save your thanks for him."

Celeste raised her eyes. She was studying me.

She didn't believe it. I could see it in her face — she didn't believe I'd just let her walk out of here without a fight.

Right at that moment the waiter came in with the next course. Celeste was on the side of the table closest to me.

There was a shriek.

A full pot of consommé — scalding hot — emptied itself across her lap.