RED LIES

AFTERGLOW

Chapter Three

Afterglow

January 1,

12:47 a.m.

The Vanderbilt mansion was a living jewel box. Crystal chandeliers dripped light like molten gold across marble floors polished to a mirror sheen. Fireworks exploded beyond the tall windows, sending violet and gold sparks across the night sky, and inside, the applause for the restored pendant still echoed in Julian Vanderholt’s ears.

He stood at the center of the grand hall, the fake ruby glowing on its velvet pedestal like a captured heartbeat. Guests orbited him—collectors in vintage Dior, board members with diamond cufflinks, photographers whose flashes felt like small suns. Every smile directed at him was laced with awe, envy, calculation. They saw perfection. They saw legacy. They saw the Vanderholt name rise again, unblemished.

Julian accepted a fresh flute of champagne from a passing tray. The bubbles tasted sharp, expensive, familiar. He let the cool glass rest against his lips without drinking, watching the room reflect back at him in the polished surfaces. His mother, Evelyn, glided past in midnight velvet, diamonds glittering at her throat like captured stars. She touched his elbow—light, deliberate, the closest she ever came to affection.

“Perfect,” she murmured, voice low enough for only him to hear. “As always.”

Julian nodded. Offered the half-smile that had carried him through boardrooms, auctions, and the occasional tabloid storm.

But beneath the surface, something unfamiliar stirred.

Power.

Not the practiced, careful version he’d worn like armor for years. This was sharper, hotter. The pendant—Issa’s pendant—had saved the night. No one knew how close it had come to disaster. No one knew the truth of the man who’d carried the broken pieces downtown in a rain-soaked pocket square. And no one needed to.

He had fixed it.

He had walked into the gala with the illusion intact.

The applause, the toasts, the reverent whispers—they belonged to him.

The thought of Issa Moreau flickered at the edge of his mind like a candle flame in a draft.

A woman in a singed apron, hair escaping its knot, torchlight painting gold across her cheekbones. She had looked at the shards and seen possibility. She had looked at him and seen… something. Not the heir. Not the name. Just him.

And for ninety minutes in her studio, he had let himself be seen.

The memory tightened in his chest—her fingers brushing his when she handed him the wrapped pendant, the quiet intimacy of the torch hissing between them, the way she’d smiled, reckless and bright, when she said, “You owe me a drink. After midnight.”

He could still feel the ghost of that touch.

He could still hear her voice: “When you put this around whoever’s neck it’s going on tonight… make sure you tell them it’s not the stone that matters. It’s the story it survived.”

Julian’s grip tightened on the champagne flute.

Why did that line keep circling back?

Why did it feel like a challenge?

Because it was.

She had given him a miracle and asked for nothing but truth in return.

And he had walked away.

The crowd parted for him as he moved toward the pedestal. Guests stepped aside with deferential nods, as if his presence alone demanded space. He stood before the pendant, arms loose at his sides, studying the glow. From ten feet away it was flawless. From two, the tiny imperfections—the slightly thicker setting, the layered resin instead of natural depth—were invisible.

Only someone who knew what to look for would see the lie.

He knew.

And she knew.

Julian’s jaw tightened.

He had spent years hiding his color blindness, compensating, deflecting. He had memorized every tell, every angle, every way to avoid admitting weakness. The board respected him for his precision. The collectors feared him for his eye. His mother trusted him to carry the name forward.

He had earned that respect.

He had earned that fear.

He had earned that trust.

One night with a woman who worked with sugar glass didn’t change any of it.

One moment of vulnerability didn’t erase decades of control.

He lifted the champagne to his lips. Drank. The bubbles burned pleasantly down his throat.

The clock read 12:58. The city was still screaming into the new year. Downtown was twenty minutes away in light traffic.

He could go back.

He could knock on that narrow door again, step into the warm chaos of her studio, and say… what?

Thank you?

I’m sorry?

I can’t stop thinking about the way you looked at me when you thought I wasn’t watching?

The thought made his stomach twist.

Julian Vanderholt didn’t apologize to strangers.

He didn’t chase women in paint-splattered jeans.

He didn’t need to prove anything to someone who had already seen too much.

A photographer waved him over for one more shot.

“Mr. Vanderholt—solo, please. The light on the pendant is perfect.”

Julian stepped forward. Chin lifted. Shoulders squared. The camera flash blinded him for a heartbeat, and when his vision cleared, he saw only reflections of himself: tall, dark, untouchable. The perfect heir. The man who never faltered.

He didn’t text her.

He didn’t call.

He let the night carry him—more champagne, more congratulations, more quiet certainty that he had won.

Because billionaires didn’t beg for forgiveness.

They took what they needed and moved on.

And Julian Vanderholt had just taken everything.

The valet brought the Aston Martin around.

He slid behind the wheel, engine purring to life with a low, satisfied growl. The city lights blurred past as he drove uptown—toward the penthouse, toward the safety of marble floors, crystal decanters, and silence.

Inside the car, the air smelled faintly of rain and expensive leather.

He told himself it was strategy.

The board would notice if he disappeared again.

His mother would ask questions.

The secret had to stay buried.

But deep down, in the part of him that still felt the brush of her fingers, the warmth of her studio, the reckless brightness of her smile, he knew the truth.

He was running.

Not from her.

From the man she’d made him feel like he could be.

The man who might have chosen something real over everything safe.

The penthouse was dark when he arrived. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the sleeping city. He poured scotch into a heavy crystal tumbler, stood at the glass, and watched the last fireworks fade into smoke.

The pendant had worked.

The night had been saved.

The name was secure.

He raised the glass in a silent toast to himself.

Then he set it down untouched.

Because somewhere downtown, in a studio that still smelled of hot sugar and possibility, a woman was probably wondering why the man who’d looked at her like she was the only real thing in his world had walked away without a word.

And Julian Vanderholt—the man who never faltered—was starting to wonder the same thing.