Chapter 2 2

The morning sun was cruel. It sliced through the gaps in the blackout curtains, hitting Ariel's face with the precision of a laser.

She blinked, her eyelids swollen and heavy, like sandpaper rubbing against her corneas.

The space beside her was empty. The sheets were cold.

Fielding was gone.

She sat up, the movement triggering the morning stiffness in her knee. She rubbed the scar tissue automatically-a habit ingrained over five years of rehabilitation.

There was something on the nightstand.

A black American Express Centurion card. Beside it, a yellow sticky note.

Rough night. Buy yourself something nice. Sorry about dinner.

Ariel picked up the card. It was heavy, made of titanium. It felt cold and impersonal, just like the man who left it.

This was his currency. Not affection, not time, not loyalty. Just credit limits.

She looked at the note again. Rough night.

A bitter laugh bubbled up in her throat, choking her. A rough night was dreaming about the car crash. A rough night was waking up screaming because you could smell burning gasoline.

A rough night was not jerking off in the shower while fantasizing about your ex-girlfriend while your wife lay in the next room.

She crushed the sticky note in her fist and threw it at the trash can. It missed, landing on the pristine white rug.

Ariel swung her legs out of bed. Her gaze fell on the long, jagged scar running down her right leg.

Five years ago.

The rain had been a wall of water. The screech of tires. The Ferrari spinning.

She remembered the heat. The flames licking at the twisted metal. She had been thrown clear-she could have walked away. She had been "Ariella Vane" to the world then, a rising Principal Dancer at the ABT, dancing under her mother's maiden name to avoid the scrutiny of her father's debts. Her legs were her life, her fortune, her secret identity.

But Fielding didn't know that. He had never cared to ask about "Ariella Vane." To him, she was just Ariel, the girl he met at a charity mixer, a "dropout" who quit college to pursue a hobby that never went anywhere. Corinna had reinforced that narrative over the years, feeding Fielding lies about Ariel's lack of education and "unskilled" background, and his arrogance had prevented him from ever fact-checking.

She remembered dragging him out. The smell of searing flesh. And then the groan of metal giving way above her.

The beam had crushed her leg. It had crushed The Nutcracker. It had crushed Swan Lake.

She closed her eyes, forcing the memory back into its box.

There was a soft knock at the door.

"Mrs. Gardner?"

It was Mrs. Higgins, the housekeeper. Her grey hair was pulled back in a severe bun, but her eyes were soft, filled with a pity that Ariel had grown to detest.

"Mr. Gardner called," Mrs. Higgins said, wringing her hands on her apron. "He said he has a business dinner tonight. He won't be home."

Ariel stared at the housekeeper. "Business dinner."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did he say who the business was with?"

Mrs. Higgins looked down at her shoes. "He didn't say, ma'am."

He didn't have to.

"I'm not hungry, Mrs. Higgins. Thank you."

Ariel waited for the door to click shut before she stood up. She walked to the study-the one room in the house Fielding rarely entered because it smelled of old paper and turpentine, scents he found 'dusty'.

She sat at the mahogany desk and opened her laptop.

Her fingers hovered over the trackpad.

There, in her inbox, was the email she had been staring at for three days.

Subject: Admission Decision – Sorbonne University, Master of Art History.

She had applied on a whim. A desperate, midnight attempt to prove to herself that her brain hadn't atrophied along with her calf muscles.

She clicked it open.

We are pleased to inform you...

Paris.

A city where no one knew she was Mrs. Fielding Gardner. A city where she was just a student with a limp, not a failed ballerina and a trophy wife who had lost her shine.

Yesterday, she had hesitated. She had thought about Fielding. About his 'trauma'. About how he needed her.

She thought about the shower. Corinna.

Fielding didn't need her. He needed a martyr to assuage his survivor's guilt. As long as she was here, broken and dependent, he could pay his penance with black cards and distance.

Her phone buzzed on the desk.

A text from Fielding.

Corinna is back in town. She's going through a hard time. Just going to check on her as a friend. Don't wait up.

The audacity was breathtaking. He wasn't even trying to hide it anymore. He was just rewriting the narrative in real-time.

Ariel looked at the black card on the nightstand. Then back at the screen.

Accept Offer.

She clicked the button.

A burst of digital confetti exploded on the screen.

Her heart gave a strange, violent kick. It wasn't fear. It was the adrenaline of a prisoner finding a loose bar in the cell window.

She immediately opened a new tab. Apartments for rent, Latin Quarter, Paris.

The phone rang again. This time, it was Fielding's personal assistant, Jessica.

Ariel picked up, her voice steady. "Hello, Jessica."

"Mrs. Gardner, good morning," Jessica sounded stressed. "Mr. Gardner asked me to remind you about the schedule. We have the Charity Gala in the city tomorrow night, and then the helicopter will take everyone directly to the Hamptons estate for the rest of the weekend."

Ariel frowned. "The Hamptons? It's barely spring. It's freezing."

"Yes, well, Mr. Gardner feels he needs a break after the Gala. He's invited a few friends to join."

Ariel's grip on the phone tightened. "Which friends, Jessica?"

Silence on the other end.

"Jessica?"

"Mr. Vance... and Ms. Merrill."

Corinna.

He was bringing his wife and his 'soulmate' to the same house for the weekend, parading them first at the Gala like prize ponies. It was a power play. Or maybe he was so delusional he thought they could all be one big, happy, dysfunctional family.

Ariel looked at her reflection in the dark computer screen. Her eyes looked hollow, but her jaw was set.

"Tell him I'll be ready," Ariel said.

"Oh. Okay. Great." Jessica sounded relieved.

Ariel hung up.

She wasn't going to the Hamptons to play house.

She stood up and walked to the small safe hidden behind a row of art history textbooks. She punched in the code-her grandmother's birthday.

Inside lay her passport, her birth certificate, and the paperwork for the trust fund her grandmother had left her. Fielding knew about the fund, but he thought it was a pittance. He didn't know about the portfolio growth. He didn't know she had access to liquid cash he couldn't touch.

She pulled out the documents.

Then she walked to the full-length mirror in the corner. She lifted her chin, extending her arms in a port de bras. Her leg wouldn't allow her to go en pointe, but the line of her neck was still graceful, still defiant.

"The Hamptons," she whispered to the glass.

It was the perfect stage for a final act.

"Countdown starts now."