Chapter 2 2

The lipstick felt like war paint.

Evia dragged the bullet across her lower lip, watching the mirror transform her face. The color was wrong. Too bold. Too obvious. Exactly what she needed to survive tonight.

Frederic appeared behind her, his reflection sliding into frame like a ghost she couldn't exorcise. He held the ruby necklace, the one that had belonged to his grandmother, the one that marked her as property. His fingers brushed her nape as he fastened the clasp. The metal was ice against her skin. She didn't shiver. She'd learned not to shiver.

"Stunning." His eyes met hers in the glass. "Absolutely perfect."

Evia looked at their reflection. The handsome heir. The beautiful wife. The lie they'd sold to magazines and shareholders. She arranged her face into the smile they'd expect. It felt like stretching skin too tight over bone.

"Thank you, darling."

The car waited. The Rolls-Royce, because tonight was the McLaughlin Foundation gala, and appearances were currency. Frederic handed her out, his grip firm, his smile for the cameras blinding. Evia placed her hand in his and stepped onto the red carpet.

Flash. Flash. The photographers shouted names. She walked the gauntlet, her spine a steel rod, her free hand resting light on Frederic's arm. Inside, the Waldorf's ballroom swallowed them in gold and crystal. Three hundred of New York's finest, drinking champagne, spending money, pretending to care about malaria in countries they'd never visit.

Evia nodded, smiled, murmured. The McLaughlin wife. The McLaughlin mask.

Then the crowd parted.

Cordelia McLaughlin leaned on her silver cane, her spine unbent at eighty-two, her eyes the same pale blue as her grandson's but stripped of any warmth. The room's volume dropped. Conversations became whispers became silence.

"Evia." The old woman's voice carried. Designed to carry. "How lovely to see you looking so... rested."

The word landed like a slap. Rested. Not busy. Not working. Not contributing. Rested. The code was clear to everyone in earshot.

Cordelia's gaze dropped. To Evia's stomach. To the flat plane beneath the silk gown. The cane tapped once against the marble floor. A judgment.

"I was speaking with Dr. Whitmore last week," Cordelia continued, volume unchanged. "The fertility specialist. Remarkable success rates with women your age. Difficult cases." She smiled, teeth too white, too sharp. "I could arrange a consultation. Discretion assured, of course."

Around them, other women, the wives and daughters, subtly lifted their champagne flutes, the crystal rims conveniently obscuring their smirks. The laughter was muffled but unmistakable.

Evia's hands found each other beneath her skirt. Her nails, manicured and rounded, pressed into her palms. The pain was distant. Useful. She felt the skin break, felt the wet warmth, and didn't release the pressure.

She turned to Frederic. Her husband. Her protector, theoretically. He was looking at the ceiling, at the chandelier, at anything but her. His champagne glass was half-empty. His jaw was set. He would say nothing. He never said anything.

Evia swallowed. The taste was copper. Blood from where she'd bitten her cheek.

"That's very kind, Cordelia." Her voice emerged level. Pleasant. The voice of a woman discussing weather or table arrangements. "I'll consider it."

The old woman's eyes narrowed. She'd wanted tears. Wanted collapse. Wanted the satisfaction of breaking her grandson's barren wife in public.

Evia held the gaze. Held the smile. Held the mask.

The moment stretched, elastic, then snapped. Cordelia turned away, dismissing her with the cane's tap. The crowd exhaled. The noise level rose. The game continued.

Evia moved through the next hour on autopilot. Nodded at the right moments. Laughed at the appropriate jokes. Her hands stayed clasped, hiding the crescent marks in her palms. She felt the blood drying, sticky between her fingers.

The air grew thick. Perfume and body heat and the pressure of three hundred watching eyes. She needed to breathe. Needed to not be seen.

"Excuse me." She touched Frederic's arm, light, brief. "The powder room."

He didn't look at her. "Of course."

She walked, not toward the restrooms, toward the terrace. The heavy glass door gave under her palm, and then cold air, real air, filled her lungs. The city spread below, a grid of light and shadow. She leaned against the railing, letting the November wind strip the ballroom from her skin.

A sound reached her. From the corner. From the shadows where the terrace curved around the building's edge.

A gasp. Low. Feminine.

Evia's shoulders tightened. Not her concern. Not her problem. Someone else's indiscretion, someone else's risk. She turned to go back inside.

Then she heard the voice. The laugh. Frederic's laugh, the one he used in private, intimate, unmistakable.

Her body moved before her mind caught up. She kicked off her heels, felt the marble's bite against her soles, and walked. Silent. The years of ballet, of deportment classes, of learning exactly how a McLaughlin woman moved-they served her now. Her feet found the cold stone, found the rhythm, found the darkness.

The Roman column rose before her, massive, fluted. She pressed herself against its shadow, becoming stone herself, and looked.

They were ten feet away. Frederic had the blonde woman against the wall, his hand under her thigh, her skirt rucked up. The woman's face was turned toward the light, eyes closed, mouth open.

Evia knew that face. She'd seen it in photographs. In progress reports. In thank-you letters written in careful cursive.

Penelope Vance. Twenty-two. First-generation college student. McLaughlin Foundation scholarship recipient for eight years.

Evia's hand found her mouth. Pressed hard. The scream stayed inside, vibrating in her chest, her throat, her teeth.

"She's a fucking ice queen." Penelope's voice, breathless, triumphant. "Can't even get pregnant. What's the point of her?"

Frederic laughed again. His hand moved. "Don't think about her. Think about the apartment. SoHo penthouse. Views for days."

"And the necklace?" Penelope's fingers tangled in his hair, pulling. "The ruby one. I want to wear it when we-"

"Done." He kissed her throat. "Anything. Just-"

Evia's other hand moved. Into her clutch. Found her phone. The camera app. She didn't think about the light, about the angle, about the risk. She pointed. She recorded.

The screen showed them in miniature, grotesque, obscene. The sound recorded too. The promises. The contempt. The betrayal dressed in dollar signs.

Her thumb hovered over the stop button. Her heart hammered so hard she felt it in her fingertips.

A footstep. Behind her. Close.

Evia's blood turned to ice.