That lands.
On her.
On me.
On the whole air between us.
Then he says something about Adele and “Someone Like You,” and Stella actually huffs out a breath like he got her on it.
Like they have enough history for that kind of shorthand.
I sit there in my boot and my humiliation and feel about a hundred years old all at once.
Stella leans back, dragging her foot lightly once more under the table before pulling it away.
Then her voice changes.
Not softer.
Deeper.
“It’s lonely at the top, Vale.”
I go very still.
Because now I know where this is going.
She keeps talking.
About goals.
About being alone with them.
About thinking that’s what she wanted.
Then—“When what I wanted all along?” She looks at him like I’m not even there. “It was you.”
I suck in a breath so sharp it hurts.
There.
There it is.
No rumor now.
No suspicion.
No fault line sensed under the floorboards.
A confession.
In the middle of the library.
At our table.
With his body still reacting to hers like he remembers too much.
I straighten, shoulders back, chin up, because my mother did not spend eighteen years drilling poise into me just for me to let another woman watch me unravel in public.
