Part 5
“You sent me a message.”
“I did not.”
“You used Adrian’s name.”
Sabine gave a brief, incredulous laugh. “You think I forged a message to lure you upstairs?”
“I think you wanted me alone.”
Adrian’s eyes moved between them.
Celia’s face changed for the first time. Not much. A slight tightening near her mouth.
Sabine noticed.
“This is insane,” she said. “I walked in and she was already upset. She started accusing me of things. I tried to calm her down. She shoved me, and then she fell.”
Nora looked at the floor between them.
“You were standing over me.”
“I was trying to help you.”
“With your foot raised?”
Sabine blinked.
Adrian’s attention sharpened.
Nora knew she should not have said it. She knew it sounded dramatic. She knew Sabine would use it.
But it was true.
Sabine’s face twisted in disbelief. “I was stepping back.”
“You were going to kick me.”
“I would never.”
“You were going to.”
Adrian’s voice cut through the room. “Sabine.”
She looked at him.
“Did you raise your foot?”
Her eyes widened.
“That is not what happened.”
“Did you?”
Sabine’s mouth parted.
No answer came.
Nora watched Adrian watch her.
The room seemed to breathe around them. The lampshade cast a soft circle of light against the cream wall. The silver sphere sculpture caught the city in a distorted reflection: blue sky, glass towers, the pale blur of Nora’s dress on the floor.
Sabine’s gaze flicked toward the doors.
Celia stood there, still silent.
“You came in at the worst possible moment,” Sabine said.
Adrian did not move.
“That isn’t an answer.”
Sabine’s expression hardened.
“You know what? Fine. Maybe I lifted my foot because she was grabbing at me.”
Nora stared at her.
“I was on the floor.”
“You reached for me.”
“I reached for the table.”
“She grabbed at me.”
“You’re lying.”
Sabine turned toward Adrian, and her voice broke again. “Do you hear how she talks to me?”
Nora closed her eyes.
For one second, she wanted to disappear exactly as Sabine had said.
Not leave the city. Not get on a plane. Not make herself smaller.
Disappear from the need to prove that pain was pain.
Disappear from the humiliation of asking a man who had once loved her to believe what was right in front of him.
When she opened her eyes, Adrian was still looking at Sabine.
He did not look convinced.
That was enough to make Sabine afraid.
The fear sharpened her.
“Nora,” she said, and suddenly her voice was almost gentle. “Why don’t you tell Adrian about the email?”
Adrian’s face changed.
Nora’s stomach dropped.
“What email?” he asked.
Sabine looked at Nora with patient sorrow, as if she hated being forced to reveal something painful.
“The one she sent me last week.”
Nora stared.
“I didn’t send you anything.”
Sabine reached for the small purse lying on the sofa. Nora had not noticed it there before. It was burgundy, matching her dress, placed carefully beside the cushions.
Adrian’s eyes followed the movement.
Sabine opened the clasp and removed her phone.
Nora felt a strange numbness spread through her.
“Sabine,” Adrian said.
“What?” Sabine asked. “You want the truth, don’t you?”
She tapped her screen. Her fingers did not shake now.
“I didn’t want to show you because I knew it would make things worse.”
Nora looked at the phone in Sabine’s hand.
She did not need to see it to know what was coming.
Sabine read aloud.
“‘You don’t get to take him from me and expect me to forgive you.’”
Nora’s breath stopped.
Adrian turned toward her.
“I never wrote that,” Nora said.
Sabine looked wounded. “There’s more.”
“Don’t,” Adrian said.
Sabine stared at him.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t read it.”
Her mouth opened slightly.
“You asked what happened.”
“I did not ask you to ambush her with messages.”
“She ambushed me.”
“Nora is on the floor.”
The sentence entered the room and changed everything.
Sabine’s face went blank.
Nora looked at Adrian.
He had not raised his voice. He had not touched anyone. But for the first time since he entered, he had said something that did not leave space for Sabine to rearrange.
Nora felt her chest tighten.
It was not relief.
It was grief.
Because three years ago, that was all she had needed. Not a declaration. Not a grand defense. Just one person willing to say, plainly, that she was being hurt.
Sabine recovered quickly.
“You think I don’t see what this is?” she asked.
Adrian stared at her.
“She comes back after three years in that dress, in this apartment, on the day we’re supposed to announce our engagement, and you’re already protecting her.”
Celia looked sharply at Adrian.
Nora did too.
May you like
He had not told her.
Of course he had not.
