Adrian smiled. Real. Warm. The kind of smile he hadn't given Amelia in three years.

"Good boy."

He held out his hand. Leo dropped the necklace into his father's palm.

Adrian closed his fingers around it.

"That's my big man."

* * *

Amelia was still on her knees.

Her hand was at her throat where the chain had been. Her neck was bleeding in a thin red line where the broken links had cut.

She didn't feel it.

She got up off her knees. Slowly. Wiped her face on the back of her wrist.

She did not look at Leo.

She looked at Adrian.

"Adrian."

"What."

"I married a devil. And I gave birth to a little one."

Adrian rolled his eyes.

He actually rolled his eyes.

"Oh, here we go," he said. "Here we go, the drama. Are you done? Are you finished with the show?"

"Adrian - "

"You always do this, Amelia. Every time something doesn't go your way. You make a scene, you cry, you say the meanest thing you can think of, and then you wait for me to come find you and bring you home." He laughed. Short. Cold.

"Not tonight. I'm done. I'm going back inside to my guests. And just so we're clear - me and Leo? We're not coming to find you this time. We're not calling. We're not talking. So before you flounce off, you'd better be sure. Because there's no coming back."

She stared at him.

"You'd better not regret this," he said.

Then her son spoke.

"Mommy."

She looked down.

Leo had his little hands on his hips. He was looking up at her with the most disappointed expression a five-year-old face could hold.

"Mommy, you graduated from kindergarten a long time ago. You're not supposed to throw tantrums anymore."

He shook his head - a small, sad, grown-up shake.

"Daddy says big girls don't cry over little things."

Amelia looked at her son.

She looked at her husband.

She looked at the gold chain in Adrian's fist.

And something in her went very, very quiet.

"You're right," she said softly. "Big girls don't."

She turned.

She walked.

Bare feet on cold pavement.

She did not look back.

Behind her she heard Adrian mutter, "Unbelievable," and Leo say, "Daddy, can we go back to Aunt Sera now?" and Adrian say, "Yeah, buddy. Come on."

Two sets of shoes, walking the other way.

She kept going.

* * *

Three more blocks.

Past a closed pharmacy. Past a 24-hour bodega. Past a chain coffee shop with one bored cashier wiping the counter.

Amelia stopped at the corner. Pulled out her phone with hands she could not quite make stop shaking.

She scrolled to a name she hadn't called in eight months.

Maya.

Maya, who'd been her best friend since seventh grade. Maya, who had thrown her bridal shower. Maya, who had walked out of Amelia's apartment two years ago after one too many fights about Adrian, and said, Call me when you're ready, babe. I'll be here. I'm always here.

Amelia hit the green button.

Maya picked up on the second ring.

"Babe." No hello. Just - babe, like no time had passed at all. "Okay. What did that pair of sorry-ass mutts do to you this time?"

A laugh punched out of Amelia's chest. Wet and ugly. She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep it in.

"Maya - "

"Talk to me."

"Maya, I - " She pressed her forehead to a cold streetlight. Her voice wouldn't come.

"Hey. Hey. Breathe. I'm right here."

"I lost everything tonight."

Silence on the line.

"I lost everything, Maya. I don't want them anymore. Either of them. I'm done."

A beat.

Then -

"OH MY GOD."

Amelia almost dropped the phone.

"OH MY GOD. AMELIA. AMELIA, BABE. ARE YOU SERIOUS?"

"Maya - "

"I want to hire a plane," Maya said. "I want to hire a plane and fly a banner over this whole goddamn city. SHE FINALLY WISED UP. Yeah! YEAH, BABY! WELCOME BACK!"

Amelia laughed. She was crying. She was laughing.

"Maya, I'm - I'm on the corner of Eighth and forty-something, I don't have shoes, I don't have a coat, I have cake in my hair, and I - "

"Stay there. Don't move. Don't blink. Mama's coming. Twenty minutes."

"Maya - "

"And, Amelia?"

"Yeah."

"Happy birthday, you free woman."

The line clicked.

Amelia stood on the corner with the dial tone in her ear and the April cold biting at her bare feet, and she looked up at the streetlight and let herself laugh - really laugh - for the first time in six years.

She was twenty-eight.

She had no shoes. No husband. No son.

And for the first time in her adult life, she was free.

* * *

Two a.m.

Leo's forehead was a hundred and three.

Adrian stood in the ER hallway holding a paper cup of coffee gone cold and watched a nurse change the IV.

"Stomach bug," the doctor had said. "Plus he skipped his evening dose of his asthma controller. Has Mom been out of town?"

Adrian had not answered.

He pulled out his phone. Opened Amelia's name. Stared at the empty thread.

His thumb hovered.

Leo is in the hospital. Come.

He typed it. Looked at it. Deleted it.

She'd come running. She'd kiss his hair and ask if he'd eaten and take the chair Adrian was sitting in, and Adrian would have to sit there and watch his son reach for her and not him.

He put the phone away.

He pulled the chair closer to the bed.

Leo's small hand was curled by his cheek. His cracked lips moved.

"Mommy," he whispered.

Adrian leaned in. "Daddy's here, buddy."

"Hurts. Mommy. Want Mommy."

"Mommy's busy, buddy."

"What's she so busy for, cleaning my room or cooking? I feel like having the small pancakes she makes." He mumbled to himself and then fell asleep.

Adrian sat very still.

The IV beeped. The nurse came back with a wet washcloth. He took it from her without looking up and laid it across his son's forehead the way he had seen Amelia do a hundred times.

He did it wrong. The cloth slipped. He fixed it. It slipped again.

He did not text her. A surge of irritability welled up inside him, and he added her to the blacklist. Since you've walked out, don't come looking for us again, he muttered to himself.

* * *

Across town, in a forty-second-floor penthouse, Amelia was wearing somebody else's silk pajamas and eating cold pizza for breakfast.

"Babe." Maya kicked open the bedroom door, two coffees in her hands. "We are going shopping."

"Maya, I don't have - "

"Stop. I have cards. Get up."

Maya tossed her a black baseball cap and a pair of giant black sunglasses.

"Rules. One - wear these the whole time, my fans are unhinged. Two - don't look at price tags. Three - smile at least once an hour, or I rap in the food court. Loud, Amelia. So loud."

Amelia laughed. Rusty. Real.

* * *

The mall was three floors of glass and marble. Two girls spotted Maya by the escalator and screamed. Maya signed a phone case, kissed a cheek, kept walking.

She steered Amelia into a boutique on the second floor and pointed at a rack of dresses.

For the next two hours she played dress-up like Amelia was a doll she'd waited six years to unbox.

A black slip dress. "Too funeral."

A red wrap. "Too 'I'm having an affair.' Save it."

A green silk thing. "That's the one to break a man on his knees, but not today."

And then -

A pale yellow off-shoulder. Buttercup yellow. The kind of yellow that made skin glow.

Maya zipped Amelia into it and turned her toward the mirror.

"Oh."

Amelia looked up.

The woman in the mirror was twenty-eight. Her shoulders were bare. Her collarbones sharp. There was a faint red line across her throat where a chain had cut her, and somehow even that looked like jewelry.

She did not recognize herself.

A salesgirl walked past. Stopped. Walked back.

"Ma'am - sorry, are you - somebody famous? You look - "

Maya cackled. "She's somebody."

A second salesgirl: "Is she that actress from - "

A third: "My God, the lighting on her - "

Maya leaned her chin on Amelia's bare shoulder.

"Six years," she said. "Six years that pair of mutts had this in their kitchen and treated you like a slave. They didn't go blind, babe. They were never looking. There's a difference."

Amelia couldn't answer.

"Okay. New plan. Tomorrow we drag your sorry-ass husband through every court in this state. While we wait - we find his boss. That Chairman whose name's on the building. We make Adrian Hale watch his wife walk into that man's office wearing exactly this dress."

Amelia froze.

"What."

"His boss. The Chairman. Adrian's been kissing that man's shoes for ten years, right? Imagine - picture it - imagine the Chairman pulls Adrian into his office Monday morning and goes - " Maya dropped her voice an octave, "- Hale. About your wife. She's coming to dinner. With me. Dump her or you're fired. Your choice. - and then she walks in in this - "

"Maya, stop - "

"- and the Chairman goes, baby, you'd better leave him quick, because if you stay, your husband's career goes in the trash, and after I'm done with you tonight, sweetheart - "

"Maya."

But Maya was off, eyes shining. "And then he kisses her against the desk - "

Amelia wasn't listening anymore.

Maya had said the Chairman whose name's on the building.

Adrian's boss.

Alexander Blackwood. She never thought that The Alexander Blackwood was her Alex,till yesterday.

He had been Adrian's boss the whole time.

That was why he was at the gala last night. He had not come for anyone. He had come because it was his building. His charity. His money paying for the string quartet and the champagne and the diamond clip on her son's bow tie.

For six years she had been married to a man whose paychecks were signed by Alexander Blackwood, and nobody had ever told her.

* * *

"Mommy!"

A small voice. Across the boutique floor.

Amelia turned.

A little girl in a pink coat was tugging the hand of a tall man in a charcoal suit, pointing right at her -

"Mommy! Mommy that's my mommy!"

Lily.

And behind Lily, holding her hand, was Alexander Blackwood.

He stopped walking.

He'd been frowning at his daughter, opening his mouth to correct her - Amelia could see the words forming, Sweetheart, your mommy is on a long trip, your mommy isn't here - and then he saw what Lily was pointing at.

He saw Amelia.

In buttercup yellow. Bare shoulders. Loose hair.

She's got a pair of sunglasses on, hiding her features completely, yet every move and every line of her posture feels so much like the woman he's always had in his heart.

His mouth stayed open. The correction didn't come out.

Amelia could not move.

She watched his eyes go dark in the specific way men's eyes went dark when a woman walked into a room.

She watched his head tilt - that same quarter inch - and she watched the question come back.

Wait.

He took a step forward.

And Maya - Maya, oblivious, still in mid-fantasy - leaned in close and said, plenty loud -

"Imagine The Mr. Alexander Blackwood bending you over his desk and going, baby, you're too good for him, leave him tonight or watch his career burn - "

Alexander stopped walking.

Amelia watched it happen in real time.

She watched his eyes go from dark to flat.

The quarter-inch tilt straightened out. The recognition that had been almost there got filed away - neatly, completely - under a different folder.

His Amelia did not stand half-naked in a department store with a woman in a thousand-dollar chain who was loudly fantasizing about him bending strangers over desks. His Amelia was shy. His Amelia said please and thank you and blushed when men looked at her too long.

This woman was just another one who looks like his Amelia.

Alexander's whole face went cold.

He scooped Lily up off the ground. Lily, mid-shriek of "Mommy! Mommy!", found herself airborne and tucked against her father's shoulder.

"Daddy, but she's - "

"That is not your mother, Lily."

"Daddy, she - "

" We don't shout at a random women in stores, and call her Mommy. Do you understand me?"

"Daddy - "

"Lily."

His voice was low and cold.

Lily started to cry.

Alexander Blackwood walked out of the boutique with his daughter on his hip. Did not look back.

The bell on the door jingled.

The boutique went very quiet.

Maya, frozen mid-fantasy, looked at Amelia.

"Babe."

"Yeah."

"Was that - "

"Yeah."

"Did he just hear me - "

"Yeah."

A long pause.

"Babe," Maya said, in the smallest voice Amelia had ever heard her use, "I think I might've fucked up."

* * *

Maya's penthouse. Ten in the morning.

Amelia signed the last page of the divorce petition and slid the stack across the marble counter to the lawyer.

"That's everything," Mr. Park said. "Filing first thing tomorrow. You sure you don't want anything? Spousal support? The apartment?"

"Nothing."

"Mrs. Hale - but what about your parents' inheritance"

"Quinn. It's Quinn now. That he should give it back. Please make sure of it in these papers,and just send him a copy."

Mr. Park did some changes,and passed them to me

She picked up her phone to forward the scan to Adrian.

She typed his name in the recipient field.

Cannot send message. Recipient has blocked you.

She blinked.

She tried again. Cannot send message.

Maya leaned over her shoulder, sipping a smoothie. "What's wrong?"

"He blocked my number."

A beat.

Maya put the smoothie down very slowly.

"Excuse me. Excuse me, did you just say. That grown man. The CEO. The one who paraded his ex around in front of four hundred people in YOUR husband-shaped role last night. THAT man. Blocked YOU?"

"Maya - "

"Babe. Babe, is he a mean girl in eighth grade? Did he block you? Are we doing that? Is he going to write DON'T TALK TO HER on the bathroom wall next? My God. The pettiness. THE PETTINESS, Amelia."

Amelia laughed despite herself. Wet, surprised, real.

"Email it," Maya said. "Email that little weasel. From your lawyer's account. Make it official. Make it ugly."

Mr. Park nodded. Pulled out his laptop. Started typing.

Maya wasn't done. She was pacing.

"He blocked her. He BLOCKED her. Sir, you should be on your knees in the gutter outside her building begging for a chance to wash her car, and instead you are clicking 'block' like a teenage girl whose crush didn't text back. Unbelievable."

"Maya, please - "

"I'm putting it in a song."

"Don't put it in a song."

"It's already in the song. The song is writing itself. He blocked her, your honor. Your honor, he blocked her - "

The laptop pinged. Mr. Park looked up.

"Sent. He'll have it in his inbox in thirty seconds."

Amelia exhaled.

She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until it left her.

* * *

Maya made eggs. Maya made coffee. Maya put a plate in front of Amelia and said "eat, woman," and then Amelia's phone buzzed.

She flinched.

It wasn't Adrian.

Maison Galerie Lefèvre, the email said. Paris.

She read it three times.

"Maya."

"Mm?"

"My painting got into the Paris show."

Maya's fork stopped midair.

"The - the one you submitted four years ago? The one Adrian said wasn't going anywhere?"

"It's nominated. Audience Choice category."

"Babe."

"They want me there. Opening night. Friday."

"BABE."

Maya's chair scraped back. She came around the counter and grabbed Amelia's face in both hands.

"You," she said, "are getting on a plane."

"Maya, I can't just - "

"Watch me. I'm calling my travel guy. You're going to Paris."

"I don't have anything to wear, I don't have a place to - "

"You have Auntie Meg."

Amelia froze.

"...Auntie Meg?"

"Texan. Fifty-seven. Six feet tall in heels. Drinks bourbon out of crystal at noon. Married a French banker in the nineties, divorced him in the two-thousands, kept the apartment. Owns half the sixth arrondissement. Your mother's college roommate at Vassar - was the maid of honor at her wedding, was supposed to be at the funeral and missed her flight, has been mad at herself about it for six years. Loves you like her own. Has been waiting for you to leave that man since the day you met him." Maya was already dialing. "Pack."

* * *

Meg met her at Charles de Gaulle in a camel coat and pearl earrings the size of small grapes, holding a bouquet of white peonies and a flask of bourbon she had emptied on the drive over. She took one look at Amelia, dropped the peonies on the floor of the terminal, and pulled her in.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said into Amelia's hair. "What did he do to you."

Amelia couldn't speak.

Meg held her tighter. "Come on. Driver's right outside. We talk later. First - wine. Then bath. Then sleep. Tomorrow, your show."

In the back of the car, Meg held Amelia's hand and did not let go.

"You should have come years ago," she said quietly. "When your mother - when the accident - I told you. Come live with me. I'd be your mother now. And you said - "

"I was twenty-two. I wanted to wait."

"For that boy. Who you would never tell me about. Not his name, not his face. Nothing. Just him."

Amelia smiled at the window. A thin, tired smile.

"He was mine, Meg. I didn't want to share him. Not even with you."

"And then he didn't come back."

"And then he didn't come back. And then Adrian - " She exhaled. "His ex had just left him. My boyfriend had just left me. We were both - broken. We drank too much one night. Leo happened. We got married because we should have. I buried the boy who left me, and I gave everything I had to Adrian and Leo."

Meg waited.

"I was bad at it."

"No, honey."

"I was. I tried for six years and they hated me by the end of it. Maybe - maybe the people I love just don't love me back. Maybe it's a thing about me. Like a - " she laughed, dry, " - like a curse."

Meg's hand tightened on hers.

"It is not a curse," she said. "It is bad men, baby. Just bad men."

* * *

Two hours later. The drawing room. Amelia, finally asleep upstairs.

Meg was on the phone.

"Alex. It's Meg."

A pause on the other end. "Meg. Is something wrong?"

"I need you to do something for me."

"Anything."

"There is a young woman staying with me. She is filing for divorce from her husband. He is a snake. He has hurt her for six years. I want you to do two things. First - protect her. She is in your city when she comes back. Second - " Meg swirled her bourbon. " - I want you to announce, publicly, that she is your new girlfriend."

Silence.

"Meg."

"I know."

"I cannot - I do not know this woman."

"You will. Three months. Fake. A photograph in a magazine. Maybe two. Enough to protect her from her husband's social standing. Then you walk away."

"With all respect, no."

"Alex."

"I am not pretending to date a stranger. I have a daughter. My company. My - "

"Alex."

"No, Meg."

A long pause.

Then, softly:

"Your mother. On the last day. What did she say to you."

Silence.

"What did she say, Alex."

"...Meg."

"She said take care of Auntie Meg. Yes? She said godmother is mother too. Yes?"

"...Yes."

"Then you take care of me. Three months. Some pictures. I will never ask you for anything else as long as I live."

A very long silence.

Then, quiet, defeated:

"Three months. Fake dating. After that I am out. I will not - I cannot - there are things you don't know."

"What things, Alex?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter. Three months. Send me her information."

Meg smiled into the phone.

"Her name is Amelia."

A beat.

"Amelia what."

"Amelia Quinn."

The line went very, very quiet.

Meg pulled the phone from her ear, frowned at the screen - call still connected - and put it back.

"...Alex?"

Nothing.

"Alex, are you there?"

A breath. Just one. Caught.

Then -

"Meg."

His voice had changed.

It had gone low. It had gone strange. It was the voice of a man who had just been hit, very hard, in the chest, by something he had not seen coming.

"Say that name again."

"Amelia. Amelia Quinn. Her mother was my dearest friend, Alex. I've held this girl since she was three days old. Why - "

"Meg."

"What."

"Where is she right now."

"Upstairs. Sleeping. Alex, what is - "

"Don't let her leave."

The line clicked.

Meg lowered the phone slowly.

She set it on the table, picked up her bourbon, took a long, thoughtful sip.

In thirty-five years she had never heard her godson make that sound. Not when his father walked out. Not when his mother died.

He had just made one over a name.

Meg looked at the phone on her coffee table.

She did not know what was between her godson and her Amelia. But the instinct said -

Something.

Meg smiled.

"Well," she said softly. "This is going to be fun."

* * *