[Caspian’s POV]
The restaurant is exactly the kind of place my father would choose. Crystal chandeliers refracting light across white tablecloths, waiters who move like ghosts, prices designed to exclude anyone without a trust fund. La Maison du Ciel, where Manhattan's elite come to see and be seen.
The paparazzi are already stationed outside when my car pulls up.
I text Serena the address at 6:47 PM: Dinner at La Maison du Ciel. 7:00 reservation. Should be done by 9.
I wait for the response that always comes. The sharp comment. The reluctant acknowledgment. The joke wrapped around hurt that tells me she's still fighting.
My phone stays silent.
I check it twice during the walk to the entrance. Nothing. Not even the little dots that mean she's typing. Just emptiness where her voice should be.
The silence hurts more than anger would.
Victoria is already seated when I arrive, positioned at a corner table with optimal lighting and clear sightlines to the window. She's wearing emerald silk that photographs beautifully, her hair swept up in an arrangement that probably took two hours.
She rises when she sees me, smile camera-ready. "Caspian. You look exhausted. Working too hard?"
"Something like that." I slide into the chair across from her. "Thank you for meeting me again."
"Of course. What are old friends for?" She signals the sommelier with practiced ease, ordering a bottle of something French and expensive without consulting the wine list.
The performance begins.
Victoria is charming tonight. Attentive. Her laugh rings out at every marginally amusing thing I say, her hand finding excuses to touch mine across the table. When I mention work stress, she leans forward with practiced concern.
"It must be overwhelming," she murmurs, her fingers brushing my knuckles. "Everything happening at once. The board pressure, the media circus, the family complications."
I let her touch linger because I know the photographers are watching. Ex-boyfriend reconnecting, old flames rekindling—exactly the narrative my father wants to feed the press.
"I'm managing." The words taste like ash. "It's complicated, but manageable."
"You always were good at managing complicated things." Victoria's smile turns warmer. "Remember senior year? Finals and the debate championship in the same week? I brought you coffee every morning."
I remember. I also remember those coffees came with subtle pressure to spend more time with her.
"You were very supportive," I say neutrally.
"I tried to be." Her hand covers mine fully now, proprietary. "I always wanted what was best for you, Caspian. Even when we ended things—I understood. We were young. We had different paths."
The waiter arrives with our first course. I withdraw my hand, grateful for the interruption.
"Tell me about her," Victoria says between bites. "Your daughter. Aria, isn't it?"
The name in her mouth feels wrong.
"She's six. Smart. Opinionated." I keep my voice carefully level. "She has her mother's stubbornness."
"And your eyes, from what I've heard." Victoria's gaze is assessing. "The tabloids mentioned she looks just like you."
"Genetics are strange things."
She dabs her lips with the napkin. "It must be strange, discovering you have a child. After all these years. With her."
The emphasis on "her" is barely perceptible but unmistakable.
I think about Serena's silence. About the distance growing between us with every staged dinner.
"Serena is Aria's mother," I say simply. "Nothing about that is strange to me."
Victoria's smile doesn't waver, but something shifts behind her eyes.
"Of course. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'm just saying—it's a lot. Finding out someone kept that secret from you for seven years."
The dig lands where it's meant to. Victoria always did know how to find the soft spots.
The main course arrives—lamb for her, fish for me, neither of which I have appetite for. I push food around my plate while Victoria fills the silence with stories about her latest project, her auditions, the producers who've been calling.
She's performing. We're both performing. And somewhere across the city, Serena is not responding to my texts while our relationship crumbles under the weight of this charade.
"You're quiet tonight," Victoria observes, tilting her head in that practiced way. "Is everything alright?"
"Just tired."
"You can tell me, you know. We may not be together anymore, but I still care about you." Her hand reaches for mine again. "I want to help, Caspian. However I can."
The sincerity almost sounds real. Victoria was always a talented actress.
I let her take my hand. Let the photographers capture the moment. Let myself become another piece in my father's game.
After dessert—which Victoria eats and I ignore—my phone finally vibrates.
Not Serena. Victoria.
She's smiling at me from across the table while her text glows on my screen: Edward says this is working. A few more outings and we announce we're "taking things slow." Then you break it off publicly.
I stare at the message, stomach churning. The casual coordination. The confirmation that my father has been coaching her, directing this entire production from behind the scenes.
"Something important?" Victoria asks innocently.
"Just work." I forward the text to Serena without adding anything. Let her see that everything’s clear as day. Let her understand the scope of the manipulation.
My phone stays silent. No response. Just the same void.
Victoria insists on dessert wine after coffee, extending the dinner until every possible angle is captured. When we finally leave, she hugs me at the entrance—long enough for the flashes, brief enough for deniability.
"Same time Thursday?" she asks, her perfume cloying in the winter air.
"I'll check my calendar."
The car ride home feels endless. I check my phone eleven times, counting. Still nothing from Serena. The silence has moved past anger into something worse—resignation, maybe. Distance. The quiet withdrawal of someone protecting themselves from further hurt.
The penthouse is dark when I arrive. The kitchen light is off, the living room empty, the silence absolute in a way that feels deliberate.
I find Serena in our bedroom.
She's in bed already, facing the wall, her breathing too even to be natural sleep. The lamp on her side is off. The message is clear.
I undress quietly, slip between the sheets. The space between us might as well be miles.
"I forwarded you Victoria's text," I say to her back. "About my father. About the timeline."
Nothing. No movement. No acknowledgment.
"Serena."
Her breathing doesn't change. Perfectly regular. Perfectly controlled. The same rhythm she uses when she's pretending not to feel whatever she's feeling.
"I know you're awake."
Still nothing.
I lie there in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of everything we're not saying. We made an agreement. I'm honoring it—every meeting reported, every interaction transparent. I'm keeping the letter of our compromise.
But the spirit is dying between us. Suffocating under the weight of Victoria's touches and staged photographs and my father's manipulation. Every dinner I share with her is a betrayal Serena has agreed to tolerate, and the tolerance is hollowing us out from the inside.
"I'm sorry," I whisper to the darkness. "I don't know how else to do this."
Serena doesn't respond.
Outside, the city glitters with lights from a million windows, a million lives being lived without this particular weight. Somewhere out there, couples are falling asleep in each other's arms, unburdened by family schemes and manufactured scandals.
We were supposed to be building something real. Something that survived the chaos.
Instead, we're keeping score. Transactions instead of trust. Tolerance instead of partnership.
The bed has never felt so empty with another person in it.