Chapter 11

The days piled up and the frictions multiplied.

Scarlett's shopping habit was architectural in scale. Couriered packages arrived in stacks every day — limited-edition handbags, custom jewellery, seasonal wardrobes. The dressing room was full within weeks of moving in.

She was difficult with the household staff — sharp-tongued when anything wasn't to her liking, dismissive on a good day, cutting when she wasn't. The house went through three sets of domestic staff in two months.

On top of Sterling Group's demands, Julian found himself managing an unending stream of Scarlett-related problems.

Scenes at designer boutiques. A collision in the car park that required his intervention with the other owner. A charity gala where she upended a glass of red wine over the organiser's wife.

One afternoon, after four hours in the boardroom, Julian sat at his desk and pressed his knuckles into his forehead.

His phone buzzed. Scarlett: Julian, I saw the most gorgeous diamond necklace. Only a few million, lol. Can you have your assistant sort it?~

He looked at that message for a long time.

He thought of Lily. In years of marriage she'd never once asked him for anything. He'd bought her a Hermès bag once, out of guilt, and she'd told him off for wasting money. It's not like I need a new bag.

He told his driver to take him somewhere — and then, instead of giving an address, told him to pull over by the waterfront.

He sat alone in the parked car and scrolled through his phone.

Mostly Scarlett: selfies, artfully lit. Travel photos. The two of them at various events.

He kept scrolling. Eventually, in the back archives, he found a single photograph of Lily.

Five years ago. The Swiss Alps, though they'd called it their Hokkaido trip. She was bundled up in a massive puffy coat, nose red from the cold, laughing with her whole face.

His thumb rested on the screen for a long time.

He drove to the old part of the city. The streets he knew without thinking.

The lane was still there. Different shop signs now, most of them, but the bones were the same. He stopped below the old building — six storeys, worn down — and looked up at the third-floor window where their flat had been.

Someone else lived there now. They'd put plants on the balcony. Pink geraniums, nodding in the evening air.

Julian stood on the pavement and didn't move for a long time.

The building security guard eventually came out to check on him, and that broke the spell. He got back in the car.

He lit a cigarette. Exhaled. Through the smoke, he half-saw Lily — young, in jeans she'd washed so many times they'd faded, her hair in a ponytail.

Julian! I got my pay cheque! Let's get hot pot tonight!

He reached out for her.

Got a fistful of cold air.

The cigarette end caught his fingertip. He looked down at the small red blister forming on his skin, and laughed.

Then the laughter became something else, and he sat in his car for the rest of the night.

Six months passed.

A major industry gala filled the Grand Meridian Ballroom — the kind of event where the city's power players gathered, took photographs of each other, and made conversations they'd pretend to have forgotten by morning.

Julian arrived with Scarlett, who was wearing this season's couture and the necklace he'd eventually bought her.

She glowed. She worked the room. Julian answered greetings on autopilot, his gaze moving through the crowd with a habit he couldn't break: searching.

For six months, he'd exhausted every contact he had looking for Lily.

Nothing.

He was exchanging pleasantries with the director of a private equity group when the room shifted.

A murmur ran through the crowd.

At the entrance, in the light of the chandelier, Lily walked in.

She was on the arm of a man Julian knew on sight.

Marcus Calloway.