My father watched me carefully. “Are you certain?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m going.”
The library was down a narrow hall lined with old portraits and heavy sconces. Music from the ballroom reached us only faintly now, a softened echo of strings and polite applause. Life continuing, because life always has the indecency to continue during personal catastrophes.
Sloane stood near a tall window, her red gown stark against the dark glass. Without the stage lights, she looked less like a conqueror and more like a woman who had dressed for a future that had evaporated.
She turned when I entered.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “I didn’t know.”
I closed the door halfway, leaving Eleanor visible in the hall. “Which part?”
Sloane swallowed. “The money. The credit line. Your signature. I knew he was married. I’m not going to insult you by pretending otherwise.”
“Good.”
Her eyes flashed briefly, then dimmed. “He told me you had an arrangement.”
I almost smiled. “Of course he did.”
“He said your marriage had become a business partnership. That you both understood appearances mattered until the Westbridge deal closed.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
The admission landed softly.
She looked at her hands. “He said you were cold.”
I thought of Preston whispering that I looked beautiful. Preston calling me brilliant when investors praised a strategy I had quietly shaped. Preston telling me, years ago, that my steadiness made him brave.
“I’m sure he did,” I said.
Sloane’s voice broke. “He said I made him feel alive.”
“That may also be true.”
She looked startled.
“People often use truth as packaging for lies,” I said. “It makes the lies easier to carry.”
Sloane wiped quickly beneath one eye, angry at the tear. “I thought I was winning.”
“I know.”
“I wanted everyone to see that he chose me.”
“And now?”
She looked toward the door, beyond which Preston’s future was being dismantled by men who had once toasted him.
“Now I don’t know what he chose.”