Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN HE THOUGHT HE HAD ERASED
When Rall Meridian bought that neglected hotel in Baltimore, Lucian wanted to tear down the enormous mural covering its entrance wall.
His advisers called it outdated.
The architect called it an obstacle.
I called it the most important thing in the building.
The mural showed the harbor through the eyes of neighborhood children. Blue fishing boats floated beneath an orange sky. A little girl held a red umbrella. Along the bottom, dozens of tiny painted hands formed a crooked border.
The artist had died three years earlier.
His daughter still lived six blocks away.
I tracked her down, brought her to the construction meeting, and watched her explain what the mural meant to the neighborhood.
Lucian listened.
Then he surprised everyone.
“Keep it,” he said.
The hotel opened seven months later.
Its lobby became one of the most photographed interiors in Baltimore, and the mural appeared in nearly every travel magazine covering the renovation.
At the ribbon-cutting, Lucian kissed my forehead.
“My wife sees things nobody else sees.”
I treasured that sentence for years.
What I didn't recognize then was how easily admiration could become ownership.
Eventually, Lucian stopped asking what I saw.
He simply expected me to make his world beautiful.
And when another woman began doing that for him, he decided I was no longer necessary.
That memory was still with me when my car arrived outside the Blackwood gala.
The event occupied the Grand Astoria's restored ballroom, a space I remembered intimately.
Three years earlier, I had persuaded the committee to replace its extravagant floral centerpieces with smaller arrangements created by local artists. The money saved funded six months of creative workshops at Children's Memorial Hospital.
Lucian had accepted the applause.
I had accepted being introduced as his charming wife.
Tonight, I intended to accept neither.
My driver opened the door.
“Enjoy your evening, ma'am.”
“Thank you.”
I stepped beneath the awning.
Cameras flashed near the entrance.
A photographer glanced toward me, raised his camera, then hesitated.
“Mrs. Rall?”
I smiled politely.
“Isolde Bennett.”
My maiden name still sounded unfamiliar in public.
But it felt wonderful.
Inside, the ballroom glowed with candlelight.
An enormous suspended installation of white branches stretched above the tables. Tiny glass birds hung between the flowers, each carrying a handwritten message from a child receiving treatment through the foundation.
I recognized the concept immediately.
It came from a proposal I had submitted four years earlier.
A proposal the committee had considered too complicated.
Apparently, complicated ideas became fashionable once somebody else presented them.
I was studying the installation when a familiar voice spoke behind me.
“Well, I'll be damned.”
I turned.
Margaret Blackwood stood in a dark green evening gown, her silver hair swept into an elegant knot.
At sixty-eight, Margaret possessed the formidable composure of a woman who had spent decades managing a foundation while wealthy men tried to explain philanthropy to her.
She had also been one of the few people who called after my divorce without asking what I had done to upset my husband.
“Margaret.”
She embraced me.
Not a polite society embrace.
A real one.
“Oh, sweetheart. Look at you.”
“I'm still working on the entrance.”
“You've already accomplished it.”
She stepped back and examined my gown.
“Those earrings.”
“My grandmother's.”
“Good. I always hated those pearls Lucian bought you.”
I laughed.
Margaret took my hand.
“I hoped you'd come.”
“I'm not sure I did.”
“Well, I'm glad one of us had faith.”
We were still talking when the atmosphere near the ballroom entrance shifted.
It was subtle.
Heads turned.
Conversations softened.
Lucian Rall had arrived.
He wore a perfectly tailored black tuxedo, his dark hair touched with silver at the temples.
At forty-five, he still had the same magnetic presence that once made me feel as though the world had narrowed to one person whenever he entered a room.
Seraphine Vale stood beside him.
She was thirty-one, beautiful, and dressed in a pale champagne gown that clung to her slender figure.
Her hair fell over one shoulder in immaculate waves.
A diamond bracelet sparkled on her wrist.
I knew that bracelet.
Lucian had purchased it in Geneva during our tenth anniversary trip.
He had told me it was too extravagant to wear outside formal occasions.
Apparently, he had reconsidered.
Seraphine laughed at something Lucian said.
Then she noticed me.
Her smile faltered.
She touched his arm.
Lucian followed her gaze.
For several seconds, he simply stared.
I watched recognition travel through his face.
Surprise.
Confusion.
Then something remarkably close to fear.
He had not expected me.
That realization should have pleased me.
Instead, it made me sad.
Thirteen years together, eleven of them married, and he still imagined he knew every decision I was capable of making.
Margaret squeezed my hand.
“Would you like me to intercept them?”
“No.”
“You're certain?”
“Yes.”
Because at that moment I understood something important.
I had spent an entire year imagining what I might say when I saw him again.
I had rehearsed cold remarks.
Elegant dismissals.
Devastating truths.
But standing there, watching Lucian approach with the woman he had chosen over me, I felt something unexpectedly ordinary.
I wanted a glass of water.
“Excuse me,” I told Margaret.
I walked toward the bar.
Unfortunately, Lucian moved faster.
“Isolde.”
His voice stopped me.
I turned.
“Lucian.”
He looked me over.
Not discreetly.
His gaze moved from my earrings to my gown, then returned to my face.
“You look…”
He stopped.
“Healthy,” I supplied.
Something tightened around his mouth.
“I was going to say beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Seraphine appeared beside him.
“Isolde. What a surprise.”
“Good evening, Seraphine.”
Her expression became carefully sympathetic.
“I didn't realize you were coming. These events can be emotionally complicated.”
I almost admired the performance.
Almost.
“They can,” I agreed.
Lucian glanced toward the guests watching us.
“Perhaps we should speak somewhere private.”
“About what?”
“Our situation.”
I studied him.
“We don't have a situation, Lucian. We have a divorce.”
Seraphine's fingers tightened around his sleeve.
A man standing nearby coughed into his champagne.
Lucian lowered his voice.
“There's no need to make this uncomfortable.”
“I wasn't uncomfortable until you suggested I should be.”
He stared.
For the first time in years, I didn't rush to rescue him from an awkward moment.
Margaret approached.
“Lucian, darling. You're blocking the entrance to the auction display.”
He stepped aside automatically.
Margaret linked her arm through mine.
“Come, Isolde. There's someone I want you to meet.”
We crossed the ballroom together.
Behind us, I heard Seraphine whisper something sharp.
Lucian didn't answer.
Margaret guided me toward a woman standing beside the silent-auction collection.
“Isolde, this is Helena Price, our new director of community partnerships.”
Helena was in her late forties, with warm brown eyes and a practical black dress.
“I've wanted to meet you for years,” she said.
“Why?”
She gestured toward the glass birds overhead.
“Because the hospital arts program you created changed how our foundation works.”
I blinked.
“I'm glad it survived.”
“Survived?” Helena looked genuinely startled. “It's our most successful program.”
Before I could respond, Margaret's expression changed.
“Helena,” she said quietly, “has something else to discuss with you.”
Helena hesitated.
“Perhaps after the ceremony.”
“What's wrong?” I asked.
She glanced toward Lucian.
Then toward the enormous installation overhead.
“Isolde, the foundation is making an announcement tonight.”
“What announcement?”
Helena lowered her voice.
“Rall Meridian has proposed buying the building that houses our children's arts center.”
My stomach tightened.
The arts center occupied a converted warehouse in Brooklyn.
I had helped secure its original lease.
“Buying it for what?”
Helena's face grew pale.
“A luxury residential development.”
I stared at her.
“That building serves four hundred children.”
“I know.”
“Lucian knows that too.”
Margaret looked directly into my eyes.
“Then perhaps you'll understand why we need to talk.”
She reached into her evening bag and withdrew a folded document.
Across the top was a familiar logo.
RALL MERIDIAN GROUP.
Beneath it, in a line highlighted in yellow, were the words:
PROJECT BLUE HARBOR — CREATIVE FACILITY ACQUISITION.
But it was the signature on the authorization page that stopped my heart.
It was mine.
May you like
Or rather, someone had made it look exactly like mine.
And beside it was a date from seven months after our divorce.
