His Beautiful Alibi

CHAPTER ONE Oriel kept its candles low and its prices off the menu, and Almara had learned long ago that this was where Stellan took people when he wanted a difficult conversation to stay civil. She arrived eleven minutes early with a leather folder under her arm. Seating chart, third draft. The caterer’s final headcount. The florist’s question about whether peonies could last until the second Saturday in June, which was thirty-one days away and had started to feel less like a wedding date than a deadline she was personally responsible for. Stellan was already at the table. That was the first wrong thing. He arrived exactly on time, never early, as though early were a kind of eagerness he preferred not to be seen having. Tonight he had a glass of water he hadn’t touched, and when she sat down he kissed her cheek rather than her mouth. She noticed. She let it go. People had bad days. “You look like you’ve been in meetings since dawn,” she said. “Something like that.” “Then you’ll want the good news first.” She opened the folder. “Your aunt Corinne has finally replied, with a plus-one named Gerald, whom nobody has met. I’ve put him at table nine, near the exit, in case he turns out to be a lot of Gerald. The bad news is the florist wants an answer by Friday, and I think we say yes to the ranunculus and no to—” “Almara.” “—the eucalyptus, because honestly—” “Almara, stop. Please.” He hadn’t raised his voice. Stellan never did. But he was looking at the folder instead of her, and his hand lay flat on the tablecloth as if he were holding it down. “I can’t do this,” he said. “The florist? I can handle the florist, I just wanted—” “The wedding.” She waited for the rest of the sentence, the part where it turned into something else. It didn’t come. She closed the folder. “Say that again.” “I’m ending it. The engagement.” He made himself look at her. “I’m sorry. I should have said something weeks ago. I kept thinking I could, and I can’t.” She laughed, one short breath. “Is this a joke? Because the timing would be bad, even for you.” “It isn’t.” No. Stellan didn’t joke about serious things. She looked for anything in his face to argue with and found only a man who had already decided. “Is there someone else?” “No. God, no. There’s no one.” “Then what happened? Four days ago we were arguing about napkin colours. Did I do something? If I did, tell me and I’ll—” “You didn’t do anything. It isn’t about you.” “Then who is it about?” “It’s—” He rubbed his jaw. “It’s about what I can and can’t do right now. I can’t explain it any better than that.” “That isn’t an answer.” “It’s the one I’ve got.” A waiter arrived with the bread, took one look at the table, and went away again. Almara’s pulse had started up in her ears. Under the shock, something cooler had begun to work, the part of her that noticed when a story had been prepared in advance. His sentences were arriving too neatly. Someone had helped him with them. “How long have you known?” “A while.” “A while.” She looked at the ring. It caught the candlelight and gave it back, small and oblivious. “And you let me send the invitations. You let me sit through the tasting.” “I know. I’m sorry.” He took a breath, and his voice changed, steadier and more practical, the voice he used on the phone with his father’s accountants. “Look. It’s decided. I’ll take care of everything: the venue, the deposits, the vendors. You won’t be out a cent, and you won’t have to make any calls. I’ll have someone deal with it.” “You already have someone.” He didn’t answer, which was an answer. She had thought she knew him. In March, when her landlord sold the building, Stellan had spent a whole Saturday carrying her boxes up three flights of stairs and never mentioned it again. She had taken that as proof he didn’t keep score. Now he sat across from her itemising the cost of ending things, as if he could make the damage manageable by paying for it. “Did you ever mean to marry me?” She hadn’t known she was going to ask. He flinched, and for the first time that night something in him looked real. “Yes. Of course I did. What we had was real, Almara.” “Then—” “It was real, and I still can’t go through with it. I know that doesn’t make sense.” “It doesn’t.” “I know.” He glanced toward the window, and that told her more than anything he’d said. He wasn’t refusing her out of coldness. He was refusing her out of fear. She stood. The ring was still on her finger and she had no idea what to do about it, so she did nothing. She tucked the folder under her arm. He followed her to the coat stand and took her coat from the attendant before she could, holding it open. Habit, she thought. Good manners were all he had left to give her. She let him settle it on her shoulders, and his hands stayed there a second too long. “Whatever you hear about my family, Almara,” he said quietly, “don’t assume you know the whole story.” She turned. “What does that mean?” His jaw tightened. She watched him realise what he’d said. “Forget I said it.” “You can’t just—” “Please. Forget it. Take care of yourself.” Then he was walking back to the table, and she went out into the evening with his sentence riding home beside her in the cab, in the seat where he should have been. * * * Her flat on Wren Street was dark and exactly as she’d left it that morning, which felt like an insult. She sat on the edge of the bed with her coat on and waited to cry. When nothing came, she went into the bathroom and worked the ring off with soap and left it on the shelf by the toothbrush holder. Without the light on it, it looked like nothing. Her phone buzzed. It was Odile, the events manager at the Larkmoor Estate, who had walked Almara through the gardens in March. So sorry to message this late. Someone from Creed Freight’s legal office rang this afternoon about our cancellation terms for the 14th. I wanted to hear it from you first. Has the ceremony been cancelled? This afternoon. Hours ago, while Almara had been in a supplier meeting arguing about eucalyptus, a lawyer had been asking what it would cost to undo her wedding. Stellan hadn’t agonised for days over how to tell her. He had decided, handed it off, and then come to dinner to deliver the result. She started typing a reply. The phone buzzed again in her hand. Stellan. Please don’t contact my father about this. She read it twice. She hadn’t said a word about Lucien Thorne at dinner. She hadn’t even thought of him. Creed was Stellan’s mother’s name, and the company carried it, but everyone knew whose company it was. She had met Lucien Thorne four times, and each time he had shaken her hand like a man checking the weight of a parcel. She’d had no reason to call him and no intention of it. But Stellan had thought about it. Before the restaurant, before the lawyers, before he’d kissed her cheek, he had sat somewhere and wondered what she might say to his father, and what his father might say back. Almara stopped asking why he had left her. She began asking what he was so afraid she would find out.