His Second Woman

Chapter1

The velvet box slipped from Kaylen's hands before she could stop it. It hit the marble floor, spun once, and rolled under Clara's vanity table. Her knees hit the floor before she could think, and as she reached under, fingers stretching for it, the slap came, much to her surprise.

SMACK!

Her head snapped sideways. She tasted blood on the inside of her cheek and her palm flew up to the sting. She stayed there, crouched, blinking against the shock of it.

"Clumsy fool."

Caroline's heels clicked across the tile. She didn't rush. She crouched, retrieved the box herself, brushed invisible dust off it, clicked on the lid with the diamond catching the light, then shut it again.

"Do you know why this ring is priceless?"

Kaylen kept her eyes on the floor. "No."

"Because it belongs to a real Bloomberg." Her heel stopped inches from Kaylen's knee. A finger tilted her chin up. "It's what you’ll never be."

Nobody in the room breathed; the makeup artist turned away, and the youngest maid twisted her apron until her knuckles went white. Kaylen said nothing. Her jaw ached from holding it shut, and she counted the veins in the marble until the ringing in her ears faded.

"Mother." Clara's voice drifted over like perfume. She crossed the room, ivory gown moving like water, and slid her arm through Caroline's.

"It was only an accident."

Caroline's shoulders dropped half an inch. "You always defend her."

"Because she's family."

Kaylen pressed her back teeth together and made herself breathe until her face went blank again.

Clara took the box from her mother and opened it herself, tilting the ring to the light. "I'll be wearing it in less than an hour." She smiled at her own reflection. "The future Mrs. Xavier Cross."

Kaylen made herself smile back.

"Congratulations." Clara caught her eyes in the mirror. "You'll stand beside me during the ceremony, won't you?"

"No," Caroline said, before Kaylen could answer. Her eyes stayed on Clara's reflection. "A servant doesn't stand beside the bride."

Servant.

Not sister.

Not daughter.

Kaylen dug her nails into her palm and said nothing. A gentle knock pierced the room and the butler pulled the door open.

"Mr. Bloomberg." he called in a whisper.

Her father walked in without looking up from the document in his hand. Conversations near the door quieted before he'd even spoken. When he finally raised his head, his eyes crossed Kaylen's face, the redness still burning on her cheek, and moved on to Caroline.

"Is everything ready?"

"Yes. The Cross family has arrived."

The room erupted into motion. Stylists descended on Clara and Kaylen stepped back until her shoulders met the wall.

"Kaylen." He held out a second box without looking at her.

"This belongs downstairs." He said, and inside sat an emerald necklace ringed with diamonds.

"The Cross family gift," Caroline said behind her.

"Don't drop this one!"

"I'll deliver it," Kaylen said, moving steadily, then his hand slipped on the door frame. He didn't turn around, his legs stayed still, and his face monitored her pace. The door cringed as it was enclosed. She stared at it a moment longer than she should have, willing the handle to turn again.

It didn't.

The ballroom swallowed her whole. Chandeliers hung overhead like a sky full of glistening celestial bodies, and the room below them was thick with tycoons, politicians and faces she recognized from the front pages of newspapers she'd never be quoted in. She stayed behind a pillar, necklace still in her hands, out of every camera's reach.

The applause started before Clara finished the staircase. She moved through it like she had been prepared for two decades. Her pace was thoroughly and ideally calculative.

The Cross family stood near the center. Kaylen recognized Xavier before she meant to.

Taller than she remembered, broader; he stood with his hands loose at his sides, not shifting his weight, not checking his watch, and still three separate conversations lost their rhythm as people's eyes drifted back to him. Guests approached one after another. He shook each hand, let his mouth curve just enough to pass for a smile, moved to the next.

Then his eyes moved. They found hers.

She looked away fast, heat climbing up her neck. When she looked again, he was still watching, not smiling, not frowning. Like he was trying to place something he couldn't name.

Across the room, Clara noticed. Her smile stayed put, but her eyes followed the line of his gaze until they landed on Kaylen too. The corners of her smile pulled a little tight, like she'd had to remind her face to hold it.

The lights dimmed and her father took the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us tonight. Today is a special day for the Bloomberg family." He extended a hand toward the staircase, Clara's.

"My daughter, Clara Bloomberg." The room erupted, echoes pulling through vividly and Clara's silhouette sipped every awe that was passed at her. Kaylen lowered her eyes and pressed the box between both hands, holding it like it might keep her upright.

The emcee called Xavier up. A servant presented the ring. Another handed Clara her bouquet.

"Mr. Cross, you may place the ring on your fiancée's finger."

Xavier opened the box. The diamond caught the light. He reached for her hand, and stopped. Held it a beat too long without taking it, his gaze sliding past the photographers, the guests at the front row, the musicians, and stopping on Kaylen.

The air caught somewhere behind her sternum. He was getting engaged in less than five minutes, right at her front and would be Clara's forever in the coming months, it hit hard.

.

.

.

Outside, the air tasted like roses and cold stone. Kaylen walked until a fountain appeared, water catching the moonlight, and stopped there, pressing her hands to the basin's edge until the carved lip bit into her palms and her breathing matched the water instead of her pulse.

It's done now. Let it go.

Footsteps; steady, unhurried and sharp moved through the gravel behind her.

"I'll be inside in a moment," she said without turning. She concluded that one of Caroline's servants must have been commissioned to drag her back before she embarrassed the family by staying too long.

The footsteps stopped.

“Your awkwardness gave it away. We've met before."

Her hands locked around the stone edge because that wasn't a servant's voice.

She turned slowly.

Xavier stood a few feet from the fountain, jacket unbuttoned, tie loosened at his throat, the music and laughter of his own engagement party dissolving into the dark behind him like it belonged to somebody else. His eyes hadn't left her face since she'd turned. They remained fixed on her as though he derived a certain amount of pleasure from gazing at her.

"There's this woman I admired, I've searched for her like crazy and I think I just found her."

He took a step closer. Gravel crunched under his shoe, impossibly loud in the quiet.

Her pulse slammed once against her throat.

"And I think,"

Another step. Close enough now that she could see the exact color of his eyes in the moonlight, close enough to see he wasn't smiling, wasn't anything she had a name f

or.

"She's staring at me right now.”

The fountain kept running behind her. She forgot, for a second, how to breathe.