Page 33 of The Marriage Blunder

I had to look away, once, because it was too much to hold in public. Across the table, Kyue caught my eye and didn’t say anything, but there was a small, private curve at the edge of his mouth that told me everything I needed to know: he’d expected this, he was happy about it, and he wanted to see how far I would let myself go.

When the final course was cleared, and Adams reappeared with a tray of after-dinner drinks, the four of us sat in the glow of a meal well survived.

I let my shoulders relax. I watched the light play off the table, the way every glass and bottle reflected in miniature.

Lucas raised a glass. “To happy accidents,” he said.

The rest of us joined. “To happy accidents,” I repeated.

Kenneth’s glass lingered by mine, the ring of crystal on wood precise and deliberate.

And for the first time in a long, long time, I was absolutely certain that I was wanted here, not as a prop, not as a placeholder, but as the actual, real me. It felt like the first time I had ever gotten the answer right, and the feeling was addictive.

When we stood, Kenneth reached over and, with the same unhurried confidence he brought to everything, straightened my bowtie. His fingers grazed my jaw, a touch so brief no one could call it anything, but it landed with the force of a declaration.

Lucas and Kyue headed out first, already deep in a quiet conversation.

Kenneth leaned in. “Come see the view,” he said.

So I did.

The study was designed for intimidation, but it failed the moment Kenneth sat down and invited me to join him. The room was lined with books, floor-to-ceiling, and the windows were a single pane of glass looking out onto a pond that was slowly being absorbed by the dusk.

The only light came from two lamps on either side of the couch, which made the rest of the space recede into comfortable, expensive shadow.

He gestured for me to sit. I did, careful to leave just enough room that it wouldn’t read as an invitation, but not so much that it would look like avoidance.

Kenneth poured two glasses from a bottle I couldn’t see and handed one over. It was whiskey, peaty, not quite my favorite but close enough that I suspected he’d done the research.

I took a sip. It burned, and then it didn’t, and then it was just warmth. “Thank you,” I said, meaning the drink and maybe the entire evening.

He nodded. “You looked like you needed it.”

We sat for a minute, the silence not awkward but not quite easy, either.

He asked, “How long have you been with Seriphap?”

The question was simple, but I knew what he was really asking. “I started working with Kyue when he was just seventeen. It was supposed to be a summer gig. My job was to make sure his portfolio didn’t accidentally trigger any international banking flags.”

Kenneth smiled. “He’s good at causing problems like that.”

I shrugged, but it was true.

“I liked the work,” I said. “It was pure. No politics, no drama. Just numbers, and the satisfaction of knowing that if you did it right, nothing went wrong.”

He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. “You’re the reason they’ve stayed under the radar.”

“I’m a reason,” I said. “They don’t like being seen. I get that.”

He considered this, then said, “You don’t like being seen, either.”

I braced for the analysis, but it never came. He just watched me, the blue of his eyes sharpened by the lamp light and the darkness outside.

We talked, then, about work. About the markets. About the weird, slow-motion disaster of the last year, and how every small correction only seemed to make the next one worse. I told him about a hedge fund that had accidentally invested in its own shell company for two quarters before anyone caught it.

He laughed. “That’s not a mistake. That’s the system working as designed.”

I nodded, because he was right, and because I liked being around someone who understood that.