The ballroom is a fairy tale brought to life. I float through it all in my custom Elie Saab gown, the one Aaron helped choose months ago via FaceTime from Miami.
Now his hand rests on the small of my back as we make our rounds, and I'm trying so hard to hold onto that feeling. Possessive and perfectly placed for photos.
I should feel like a princess in this ethereal creation of silver beading and French tulle. Instead, I feel like I'm performing in a play where everyone knows their lines except me.
In two months, I'll be Mrs. De Luca. In two months, this will all make sense again—the distance, the changes, the small things that don't quite add up.
I push the thought away. He's just stressed.
The Miami expansion has been brutal—I know this because he tells me this every time I’ve noticed the distance growing between us.
"Vincent, congratulations on your daughter's match!" Don Moretti says, his wife near him is draped in diamonds. "The union will be profitable for both families."
Profitable.
I try not to wince at the word, but Aaron squeezes my waist gently, a private gesture of understanding.
"We're very happy," Aaron says, and when he looks down at me, I see it there—the warmth, the pride, the genuine affection. "Aren't we, bunny?"
The nickname should make me melt. It used to. But something about the way he says it now feels performative, like he's checking a box on a list labeled "dutiful fiancé."
"Disgustingly so," I reply, trying to inject lightness into my voice.
He kisses my temple—perfectly placed, perfectly timed—but his cologne is different tonight again, and underneath it, something floral that makes my stomach clench.
Women's perfume.
He probably hugged someone. A cousin. A friend. It doesn't mean anything.
But then his phone buzzes, and I see it—the way his jaw tightens as he reads the screen. The way his thumb hovers over the reply before he catches himself and shoves the phone back in his pocket.
"Everything okay?" I ask, keeping my voice light.
"Fine. Just business." But his eyes have already left mine, scanning the room again.
Looking for what? For whom?
We continue making rounds, and I try to catalogue all the small wrongnesses that I can't quite articulate.
The way he introduces me to associates with pride but no warmth. The way he keeps checking his watch like he's counting down to something.
"Your sister seems to be enjoying herself," Mrs. Moretti observes.
I follow her gaze to where Kaia holds court near the bar, surrounded by admirers.
She's wearing crimson Versace slashed dangerously high, her laugh carrying across the ballroom. Aaron's body goes rigid beside me. Not just tense, rigid. Like every muscle has locked into place.
I glance up at him. His jaw is clenched, eyes fixed on Kaia with an intensity that makes something cold slither down my spine.
It's not disapproval on his face. It's not even an irritation.
It's hunger.
"Aaron?" My voice sounds distant.
He blinks, and the expression vanishes so quickly I almost convince myself I imagined it. "Sorry, what?"
"Are you okay?"
"Fine. Just thinking she should show more class at our engagement party." But his voice is tight, and his eyes drift back to her like a compass finding north.
I watch them—my fiancé and my sister—and suddenly I'm noticing things I've been deliberately not noticing.
The way Kaia's gaze keeps finding him across the room. The way she laughs louder when he's nearby. The way she touched his arm earlier when congratulating us, her fingers lingering a beat too long while her eyes held a secret I wasn't privy to.
The way Aaron's breathing changes when she moves.
Stop it. You're being paranoid. You're manufacturing problems because you're scared of being happy.
But then Kaia leans over the bar for another martini, her dress riding up, and Aaron's fingers dig into my waist hard enough to bruise.
"You're hurting me," I murmured.
He releases me immediately, but his hands are trembling slightly. "Sorry. I just... this party is getting out of hand. I need some air." He's already stepping back. "And a phone call. This Miami thing won't wait."
"Another one?" The words escape before I can stop them.
Something flashes in his eyes—guilt? Annoyance? "It'll be quick."
"You said that last time. And the time before."
"Esther." His voice has an edge now. "Don't start."
The coldness in his tone makes me flinch. This isn't us. We don't talk to each other like this. Or at least, we didn't use to. "Fine," I whisper. "Go."
He leaves without another word, and I watch him disappear into the crowd.
"Everything alright?" Margot appears at my elbow, concern in her eyes.
"Perfect," I lie, gulping champagne that tastes like broken promises. "Everything's perfect."
That's when I see him. Across the ballroom, partially hidden by an arrangement of white orchids, stands a man who makes everyone else in the room fade to static.
He's devastating—tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair swept back from a face. His suit is expensive, custom, fitting his body with the kind of precision that speaks of serious money.
He's watching me with an intensity that should make me uncomfortable. But when our eyes lock across the ballroom, he smiles—slow and knowing. There's something familiar about him, though I'm certain we've never met.
The attention should feel wrong. I'm engaged. I'm in love—or I'm supposed to be. I'm two months from my wedding.
But this stranger's gaze feels like waking up.
He lifts his champagne flute in a subtle toast, and something in his icy-blue eyes looks like recognition. Like he knows me. Like he's been waiting for me to notice him back.
I force myself to look away, guilt churning with something dangerously close to relief.
"Did you see that man?" I ask Margot. "By the orchids?"
Margot squints across the room. "What man?"
I turn to point more obviously. "Right there, he was just—"
The spot is empty, the stranger has vanished. I scan the ballroom frantically, but he's nowhere. Gone like smoke.
"There's no one there, Es," Margot laughs. "Maybe you need more champagne. Or less. I can never tell with you."
Aaron's been gone twenty minutes now. Then thirty. I make excuses to various guests, playing the gracious bride-to-be while my mind spins with possibilities I don't want to examine.
"Have you seen Aaron?" I ask Patricia.
"Check your father's study, dear. Boys and their business."
But he's not in the study. Not on the terrace where the smokers congregate. Not in the garden where couples steal moments.
"I saw Mr. De Luca heading toward the wine cellar," a server mentions.
"When?"
"Twenty minutes ago, Miss."
The cellar stairs are dark, my heels click against marble, but some instinct makes me slow, quieting my steps. And then I hear them before I see them.
Kaia's breathy moans echo off the stone walls. The rhythmic thud of bodies against wood. Bottles rattling in their racks.
My body knows before my mind processes. Ice floods my veins as I round the corner.
Aaron has Kaia pinned against the racks of my father's most expensive collection. Her legs are wrapped around his waist, crimson dress bunched at her hips. His pants are around his thighs, his hips driving into her with violence that makes the entire rack shake.
His hand covers her mouth, muffling her cries. "Fuck, baby," he groans into her neck. "You feel so much better than—"
Kaia's eyes open and lock onto mine over his shoulder. Her pupils are blown wide, lips swollen, throat marked with bruises that will show tomorrow.
She smiles. Slow. Cruel. Triumphant.
Then she deliberately pulls Aaron's hand from her mouth.
"Harder!" she moans, loud enough to echo through the cellar, through my bones. "Make me feel it tomorrow when I'm at breakfast next to her."