The conversation was a blur.

Ian Foster was perfectly pleasant. He talked about his work at Mount Sinai, a funny story about a patient who thought a seizure was a divine message. He was charming, and under any other circumstances, Althea might have been charmed.

But all she could hear was the frantic, irregular thumping of her own heart.

Her mind was in the room next door. With him.

She pictured his cool gray eyes, the slight, cruel curve of his mouth. The way he had looked at her as if she were a piece of dirt on his shoe.

"...and that's when we realized the tumor was pressing right on his temporal lobe," Ian was saying.

Althea nodded, trying to look engaged. "Fascinating."

The word came out flat. Lifeless.

She needed to escape. She needed air.

"Would you excuse me for a moment?" she asked, placing her napkin on the table. "I just need to... use the restroom."

Ian's expression was all understanding. "Of course. Take your time."

Althea fled the room.

The corridor was empty. The door to the Trianon Suite was now firmly shut. A fortress. She couldn't hear a thing from inside.

A small measure of relief washed over her. She hurried down the hall to the restroom area.

The restroom area was a cavern of marble and gold fixtures, and thankfully, empty. She went to the sink, turned on the cold water, and splashed it on her face.

The icy shock helped. A little.

She lifted her head, water dripping from her chin, and looked at her reflection. A pale, haunted-looking woman stared back. Her eyes were too wide, her lipstick slightly smudged.

Then, in the mirror, a movement behind her.

The door to the men's lounge swung open, and a tall figure stepped out.

Althea's entire body went rigid.

It was Damarcus.

He was drying his hands with a linen handkerchief, his movements slow and deliberate. He didn't seem surprised to see her.

He didn't leave. Instead, he leaned a shoulder against the marble wall, folding his arms. His gray eyes met hers in the mirror, and the vast, empty space between them suddenly felt small and suffocating.

The silence stretched, thick and heavy. Althea could hear the blood roaring in her ears.

He was the one to break it. His voice was low, devoid of any emotion. "The Hayes family debt. Is it settled?"

The question was a shard of ice, sliding straight into her gut. It was the one topic, the one raw wound, she couldn't bear to have touched. Especially not by him.

She wrenched her gaze away from the mirror and turned to face him directly, her jaw tight. It was a pathetic attempt at a standoff, but it was all she had.

"That's none of your business, Damarcus." Her voice trembled, and she hated herself for it.

A small, humorless smile touched his lips. It was more of a sneer. A scoff. "I suppose your doctor date is footing the bill tonight?"

The insult was so direct, so demeaning, it stole her breath. He was implying she was for sale.

Heat flared in her cheeks. "What I do is my concern," she snapped, anger finally burning through the fear. "We are divorced."

She spat the word "divorced" at him. It was a shield. A flimsy, paper-thin shield against a man made of steel.

Damarcus's eyes narrowed. He pushed off the wall and took a single step toward her. The space between them shrank. The air grew thin.

"A piece of paper doesn't erase history, Althea."

She took an involuntary step back, her hips bumping against the cold, hard edge of the marble vanity. Trapped.

She couldn't do this. She couldn't stand here and let him dismantle her, piece by piece.

She sidestepped, intending to brush past him and escape back to her own room, her own life.

He didn't move to stop her. He simply watched her go, his gaze a physical weight on her back.

She practically ran back to the Versailles Suite, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard it hurt. She slid back into her chair, trying to compose her features, trying to breathe.

Ian was looking at her, his brow furrowed with concern. But before he could speak, his phone buzzed violently on the table.

He glanced at it, and his entire demeanor changed. His face became a mask of professional gravity.

"I'm so sorry, Althea," he said, already standing up. "There's an emergency at the hospital. A multi-car pile-up on the FDR."

He had to go. Immediately.

Althea felt a dizzying, inappropriate wave of pure relief.

"Of course," she said, her voice genuine for the first time all night. "Please, go. Don't worry about it."

He gave her an apologetic look, quickly paid the bill with the waiter, and scribbled his number on a napkin. "I'll call you. We'll do this again."

Then he was gone.

The suite was silent again. Althea was alone, staring at a table of expensive, untouched food. The whole evening felt like a bizarre, cruel joke. And she was the punchline.

Althea sat in the empty suite for five full minutes, the silence pressing in on her. She tried to breathe, to push the events of the last hour into a box and shove it away. But the box wouldn't close.

A waiter appeared, his face a polite, impersonal mask. "Will you be needing anything else, ma'am? Shall I have this packed for you?"

She shook her head. Her stomach was a tight, aching knot. The thought of food made her want to be sick.

"No, thank you."

She gathered her small clutch and stood, her legs feeling unsteady. Leaving the hotel felt like a retreat from a battlefield where she had been thoroughly, humiliatingly defeated.

The cool night air of Madison Avenue was a slap in the face, shocking her out of her daze. She stood under the hotel's ornate awning, fumbling for her phone to order an Uber, trying to look like she belonged there.

Althea instinctively looked away, her cheeks burning. She didn't want to be seen. She wanted to be invisible.

Then, the hotel's revolving door pushed out another figure.

Damarcus.

He had put on a dark, tailored overcoat that made him look taller, more imposing. The doorman, a man with a face like a weathered map of Ireland, straightened up immediately.

"Mr. Everett. Your car is ready."

Althea's heart skipped a beat. She froze, phone in hand, praying he wouldn't see her huddled by the curb.

A car glided to a silent stop in front of him. It wasn't a black Mercedes or a Cadillac like the others lined up. It was a vintage Bentley S2 Continental, its deep, British racing green paint gleaming under the streetlights. It was a piece of art, a whisper of old-world elegance in a city of noise and steel.

Althea stopped breathing.

She knew that car.

It was a 1961 model. She had spent a year tracking it down, negotiating with a reclusive collector in Switzerland. She'd had it secretly shipped to a specialist in Connecticut and restored to perfection.

It had been his first anniversary gift.

She remembered the look on his face when she'd given him the keys. A rare, genuine flash of surprise and delight that had made her own heart ache with love.

He still had it. He was still driving it.

The thought was a physical blow, knocking the wind out of her.

His longtime driver, Frank Miller, got out and opened the rear door. Frank, who had driven them to their wedding. He saw Althea, and a complicated emotion—pity? recognition?—flickered in his eyes before he gave her a stiff, almost imperceptible nod.

Damarcus's gaze lifted, sweeping over the polished roof of the car, and landed directly on her. He had known she was there all along.

He didn't get in the car. He just stood there, the city lights glinting in his dark hair.

"Need a ride?" he asked.

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried in the cold air. The doorman heard it. Frank heard it. It was a casual question, but it felt like an offering of charity. A display of power.

Althea felt a hot flush of shame creep up her neck. She was acutely aware of the doorman's curious glance.

She forced her fingers to tap on her phone screen, to complete the Uber request. She lifted her chin, her voice miraculously steady and cool.

"No, thank you. My car is on its way."

The lie was flimsy, pathetic. She hadn't been able to afford a private car service in years.

A ghost of a smile played on Damarcus's lips. He saw right through her. Of course he did.

He didn't press. He simply gave a slight nod, then bent his tall frame and slid into the backseat of the Bentley.

The door closed with a solid, satisfying thud, sealing him away in his world of leather and wealth.

Through the rear window, Althea saw him turn and say something to the passenger seat. Tiffany hadn't left after all. She had been waiting for him. Now she was leaning toward him, her smile dazzling.

A hand squeezed Althea's heart, tight and painful.

The vintage car pulled away from the curb, its engine a low, powerful purr. It merged seamlessly into the river of headlights on Madison Avenue and disappeared.

Her phone buzzed. Your Uber is arriving now. White Toyota Camry.

She opened the door and slid onto the worn fabric seat. The car smelled faintly of air freshener and old coffee. The chasm between his world and hers had never felt so vast, so unbridgeable.

She leaned her head against the cool glass of the window, watching the glittering towers of Manhattan slide by. She felt like a ghost haunting a city that no longer belonged to her.