Off Limits

Chapter 20: Racing The Clock

Elena left work early, something she'd never once done in three months at Halbrook, texting her manager a barely plausible excuse about a family emergency before she'd even finished processing the specific, cold panic Damian's call had set off in her chest.

She found him waiting outside her building when she arrived, pacing in a way that told her, even from half a block away, exactly how badly the lunch had actually gone.

"Tell me everything," she said, pulling him inside before either of them said anything further on a street full of potential witnesses. "Exactly what she said, word for word if you can manage it."

Damian recounted the conversation in careful, precise detail, and Elena listened with her arms wrapped tight around herself, feeling the walls of the careful, contained secret they'd been managing for weeks crack open all at once under the weight of Vivian's casual, devastating cruelty.

"She said she has no interest in being the one who tells Sophie," Damian finished, dropping onto her couch with the particular exhaustion of a man who'd spent the last two hours running through every possible worst-case scenario. "But I don't trust that for a second. Vivian doesn't do anything without a reason, and I don't think 'no interest' means she won't use this if it becomes useful to her some other way."

"So what do we do." Elena sat beside him, her mind already racing through possibilities with the same methodical urgency she brought to a crisis at work. "Do we tell Sophie now, before Vivian has the chance? Or do we wait and hope this doesn't actually go anywhere?"

"I don't know." Damian rubbed a hand over his face, genuine uncertainty visible in a man Elena had rarely seen anything less than fully composed. "We agreed to wait until after the wedding. That's still six weeks away. Six weeks is a long time for a secret like this to survive once someone outside the two of us actually knows about it."

"Six weeks where Sophie could find out from someone else instead of from us." Elena felt the specific, sick dread of watching a carefully built plan collapse under pressure neither of them had accounted for. "Damian, if she hears this from anyone but us, it's not just going to hurt her. It's going to feel like we were actively hiding it from her specifically, which — we were, but there's a difference between hiding it while we figured out how to tell her properly and hiding it because we got caught."

"I know." Damian reached for her hand, his grip tighter than usual, betraying more anxiety than his voice let on. "I keep thinking about her face if she found out this way. Through gossip, through Vivian's specific cruelty, instead of from us directly, with care, the way she deserves."

They sat in heavy silence for a long moment, the specific weight of an impossible decision settling over both of them, before Elena finally spoke the thought she'd been turning over since Damian's frantic phone call.

"I think we need to move up the timeline," she said slowly. "Not the wedding — I still think Sophie deserves her wedding day without this hanging over it. But right after. Not six weeks from now. As soon as the wedding's actually over, the very next day if we can manage it, before Vivian has any more time to decide this is useful leverage for whatever she's actually after."

Damian considered this for a long moment, and Elena watched him weigh the specific terror of accelerating a conversation he'd clearly hoped to have more time to prepare for. "The day after the wedding," he said finally. "That's less than three weeks from now."

"I know it's fast." Elena squeezed his hand, needing him to understand the reasoning even through her own fear. "But I'd rather tell her too early than risk her finding out from someone who wants to hurt us both in the process. She deserves honesty, Damian, even if the timing isn't perfect. Especially if the timing isn't perfect."

"Okay," Damian said finally, something resolved settling into his expression despite the visible fear still lingering underneath it. "The day after the wedding. We tell her together, properly, before Vivian or anyone else gets the chance to do it for us."

Elena nodded, feeling the decision settle into her chest with a mixture of relief and dread in equal measure — relief that they finally had a concrete plan, dread at the specific, real conversation now looming considerably closer than either of them had prepared for.

Her phone buzzed on the coffee table, and she glanced at it automatically, her stomach dropping through the floor for the second time that day at the name on the screen.

*Sophie: Hey, weird question — did my mom mention anything to you about Vivian calling the house asking about the wedding guest list? She said something about wanting to make sure "everyone important" was invited. I have no idea why my dad's ex-sister-in-law suddenly cares about my wedding. Do you know what that's about?*

Elena stared at the message, feeling the careful, three-week timeline they'd just settled on suddenly feel considerably less secure than either of them had wanted to believe.