"His parents are in the lobby."
The voice catches me mid-stride in the executive hallway, and I freeze with one hand still smoothing down my skirt.
Caspian's assistant Miranda delivers the news like a death sentence, her perfectly manicured fingers clutching a tablet against her chest.
"Both of them?"
My voice comes out steadier than I feel, which is a miracle considering my insides have turned to liquid nitrogen.
"Both of them, Mrs. Voss. They arrived unannounced about ten minutes ago. Mrs. Voss Senior specifically requested that you join them while they wait for Mr. Voss to finish his conference call."
Victor and Rowena. Here. Now.
I can picture Rowena's silver coif perfectly—that woman could freeze champagne with a single glance. Victor beside her, checking his watch with the impatience of a man who believes the world runs on his schedule.
How am I supposed to look them in the eye?
The thought claws at my throat, hot and shameful.
"I have a meeting." The lie tumbles out before I can think. "Off-site. Very important. Legal emergency, completely unavoidable."
"Mrs. Voss, I don't think—"
"Tell them I'm devastated to miss them."
I'm already pivoting, heels clicking against marble as I head toward the service corridor. The back elevator. The one that spits out into the parking garage instead of the gilded lobby.
"Absolutely gutted. We'll have to reschedule, maybe sometime next decade when I've recovered from the sheer disappointment of missing this opportunity."
I shoulder through the service door and jab the elevator button three times in rapid succession, as if that will make the doors open faster.
The elevator arrives with a soft chime, and I'm inside before Miranda can follow.
My hands are shaking when I pull out my phone and dial Tessa's number.
She picks up on the second ring.
"If this is about that documentary on competitive cheese-making, I already told you—"
"Emergency." The word comes out breathless, desperate. "Wine. Now."
Silence.
Then: "Where?"
"O'Malley's. Twenty minutes."
"I'll be there in fifteen."
She hangs up without another word, and I spend the entire drive gripping the steering wheel, trying not to think about what I did on Saturday night.
If he wasn't at the masquerade, then who was?
O'Malley's smells like oak barrels and poor decisions, which feels appropriate given the circumstances.
It's the kind of place where the bartender knows better than to make eye contact and the booths are dark enough to hide a multitude of sins.
Tessa is already tucked into our usual corner when I arrive, two glasses of pinot noir sweating on the scarred wooden table between us.
"You look like someone ran over your cat and then backed up to make sure they finished the job." She slides one of the glasses toward me. "Talk."
I take a long swallow of wine before I can make myself form the words.
"Caspian didn't send the invitation."
My voice cracks on his name, splintering like thin ice under too much weight.
"He wasn't at the masquerade. When I tried to thank him for Saturday night, he looked at me like I'd lost my mind and asked what party I was talking about."
Tessa goes very still, her wine glass frozen halfway to her lips.
"So you're telling me," she says slowly, each word landing like a stone dropped into deep water, "that you slept with a stranger."
"I thought it was my husband."
The words taste like ash and battery acid and every regret I've ever swallowed.
"Everything about that man was exactly right, Tessa. The voice, the height, the way he held me. He called me 'little star,' and that's Caspian's name for me."
"Jesus Christ, Elara."
"I know."
She drains half her wine in one long swallow, then sets the glass down with a decisive clink that sounds like a judge's gavel.
"Okay. Okay, we're handling this. We're going to sit here and drink this extremely mediocre pinot and figure out what the hell happened and who the hell was wearing that mask."
"I don't know how to figure it out. I didn't see his face. That was the whole point of the masks, wasn't it? Mystery and romance and all that garbage I was stupid enough to believe in."
"You're not stupid."
Tessa's voice goes fierce, the same tone she uses when she's about to verbally eviscerate someone who deserves it.
"You're a woman who's been starving for affection from a man who treats emotional intimacy like a communicable disease. Of course you believed it was him. You wanted it to be him so badly that your brain filled in all the gaps."
"That doesn't make it better."
"No, it doesn't."
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand.
"You know what? This is your sign, Elara. This is the universe sending you a flashing neon billboard that says 'get out now while you still can.' Dump him. File for divorce. Come work for my father."
"Tessa, that's not—"
"I'm dead serious."
She leans forward, brown eyes blazing with the kind of certainty I've always envied.
"Harrison and Associates would kill for someone with your strategic mind. You'd be out of Caspian's shadow, away from his viper parents, building something that's actually yours instead of playing supporting actress in the Caspian Voss show."
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
She tilts her head, studying me with an intensity that makes me want to squirm.
"What's keeping you there? The money? You'd make plenty at my father's firm. The prestige? You'd earn your own. The marriage?"
Her laugh is short and bitter.
"Sweetheart, that marriage died two years ago. You've just been too loyal to bury the corpse."
I pull my hand back, wrapping both arms around myself like armor.
"I thought things were changing. Today in his office, he actually apologized to me. He said he wanted to try again, that he'd been wrong to shut me out after the miscarriage."
"And then you found out he didn't send the invitation."
"And then I found out he didn't send the invitation."
I close my eyes, pressing my fingertips against my eyelids until I see stars.
"Which means someone else did. Someone who knew about the little star nickname. Someone who wanted me to believe I was with my husband while I was actually—"
I can't finish the sentence.
Tessa finishes it for me, her voice gentle in a way she rarely allows herself to be.
"While you were actually with someone who went to a lot of trouble to make you think otherwise."
"Who would do that?" The question comes out small. "Who would orchestrate something like that?"
"I don't know."
Tessa signals the bartender for another round, then turns back to me with determination carved into every line of her face.
"But I meant what I said, Elara. I will burn down every bridge between you and that family if you ask me to. Say the word and I'll have my father's lawyers drawing up divorce papers by morning. Say the word and you never have to see Caspian Voss or that godforsaken penthouse ever again."
My throat tightens with something that feels dangerously close to tears.
"Let me think. I need time to figure out what happened. I can't make decisions this big when I don't even understand what I'm deciding about."
Tessa studies me for a long moment.
"Whatever you decide," she says finally, reaching across the table to hold my hand tight, "I'm here. Always. That's not conditional on you making the choice I think you should make. That's not conditional on anything at all."
I squeeze her fingers back, holding on like she's the only solid thing in a world that's suddenly turned to quicksand beneath my feet.
Always.
The word settles into my chest like a stone, heavy and warm and terrifying all at once.
Because somewhere out there, a man in a gold mask knows my secrets.
And I don't even know his name.