Part 7
“So was I.”
“Then tell me where.”
Sabine stared at him.
“What?”
“You said she attacked you.”
“She pushed me.”
“Where did she touch you?”
Sabine’s face changed.
Nora stopped breathing.
Adrian’s question was not loud. It was not cruel. But it was precise.
Sabine reached toward her shoulder, then her arm, then stopped.
“She grabbed me.”
“Where?”
Sabine swallowed.
“Here.”
She touched the upper part of her arm.
Adrian looked.
There was no mark.
Not that there had to be. Nora knew that. The absence of a bruise did not prove anything. Pain did not always leave visible evidence. She knew that better than anyone.
But Sabine’s fingers were trembling now.
“She shoved me,” Sabine said again.
Adrian looked at Nora’s dress, at the faint dust along one side of the skirt, at the red pressure mark beginning near Nora’s elbow.
Then he looked at the space where Nora had fallen.
“Why was she on the floor?” he asked.
Sabine’s mouth opened.
Celia closed her eyes.
For a moment, the entire penthouse seemed to wait for Sabine’s answer.
“She slipped,” Sabine said.
Nora let out a breath that sounded like a laugh.
Sabine turned toward her, fury breaking through the performance.
“You think you can sit there and make me look insane?”
“I don’t have to make you look like anything.”
Adrian’s gaze sharpened.
Sabine heard the change in Nora’s voice too.
For the first time, Nora was not pleading. She was not trying to explain herself into safety. She was tired, hurt, and still on the floor, but some part of her had stopped asking permission to be believed.
Sabine took one step toward her.
Adrian moved between them.
The gesture was subtle. He did not shove Sabine away. He simply placed himself in the line between them, shoulders squared, eyes fixed on her.
Sabine stopped.
The silence that followed seemed to reach all the way to the windows.
Outside, sunlight flashed on a passing helicopter. Far below, traffic flowed in small, soundless lines. The city had no idea what was happening on the thirty-eighth floor of a building built to keep private lives private.
Celia looked at Nora.
“Are you in pain anywhere besides your side?” she asked.
Nora nodded.
“My ankle.”
Celia’s face softened.
“Can you move it?”
“A little.”
Adrian looked toward the double doors.
“No,” Nora said.
He stopped.
“I wasn’t leaving,” he said.
“I know.”
But she did not know.
Not entirely.
She had spent three years learning that people left long before their bodies did. They left in silence. They left in hesitations. They left in the space between a question and an answer.
Adrian looked at her for a long moment.
Then he turned back to Sabine.
“What did you mean when you told Nora she was supposed to disappear?”
Sabine’s expression went blank.
“I never said that.”
Nora felt something inside her sink.
Of course.
Sabine was not going to deny just the shove. She would deny the words too. She would deny every part of it until Nora began doubting the shape of the room.
“You did,” Nora said.
Sabine shook her head. “No.”
“You said I should have taken the job in Lisbon.”
“I said you talked about Lisbon.”
“You said I was supposed to disappear.”
Sabine looked at Adrian with a sadness so carefully assembled that Nora almost admired it.
“She is twisting everything,” Sabine said.
Adrian’s face did not soften.
“You have a habit of saying that when someone remembers something differently than you do.”
Sabine stared.
Celia looked down.
The accusation did not come from Nora. That mattered.
Sabine’s eyes moved slowly to Adrian.
“What did you just say?”
He seemed to regret it as soon as it left his mouth, but not enough to take it back.
“I said you have a habit—”
“I heard you.”
Nora watched Sabine’s face lose color.
“You think I manipulate people.”
“I think you are upset.”
“That is not what you said.”
“No.”
The word came quietly.
Sabine laughed once.
It sounded empty.
“You know what? Fine. Maybe I do manipulate people. Maybe I have to, because every person in this family thinks they know what’s best for me.”
“Sabine,” Celia said.
“No. Let’s say it. Let’s finally say it.” She looked at Nora. “You wanted him to feel guilty. You wanted Celia to pity you. You wanted me to be the villain because that was easier than admitting you left.”
Nora’s hands curled in the folds of her dress.
“I left because you sent me a message from Adrian’s phone.”
The room changed.
Adrian turned toward her.
May you like
Sabine went completely still.
Nora had not planned to say it. She had carried the suspicion for years without speaking it aloud because once it became real, she would have to face what it meant.
