Chapter 3: What Alexander Already Knew
The music stopped.
I don't know who signaled the band.
Perhaps no one did.
Perhaps even the musicians could feel that something had broken open in the center of that beautiful room and that no amount of strings and piano could cover it.
Victoria recovered first.
She always did.
"Your sister." She said it the way someone repeats a word in a foreign language — carefully, as if testing whether it will hold.
"Isabella, darling, this woman is a waitress.
She's clearly upset and confused, and this is neither the time nor—"
"She has our photograph," I said.
"The one from St.
Catherine's.
The one that went missing when I was sixteen."
A small sound moved through the nearest tables.
I didn't look at the guests.
I kept my eyes on Victoria.
"Photographs can be found anywhere," Victoria said.
Her voice had gone smooth and careful.
"Charity sales.
Estate boxes.
This doesn't mean—"
"She knew my name." My grip on Anna's hand tightened.
"Not Isabella.
She knew what she called me when no one else was listening."
Victoria said nothing.
Alexander crossed the room then.
Not quickly — he walked the way a man walks when he is deciding, with each step, how much he is willing to admit.
He stopped a few feet away and looked at Anna for a long moment.
Something passed across his face that I had never seen there before.
It was not confusion.
It was recognition.
"Alexander." My voice came out very quiet.
"Have you seen her before?"
He didn't answer immediately.
That was its own answer.
"Alex." I stepped toward him.
"Look at me.
Have you seen this woman before today?"
"Bella—"
"Answer me."
He exhaled through his nose.
His jaw worked.
Then he said, "Mother handles the staffing arrangements for the Grand Regent properties.
I don't involve myself in—"
"That isn't what I asked you."
Anna made a small sound beside me.
I turned to look at her and saw that the color had left her face entirely.
"He came to see me," Anna said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Three months ago.
He came to the agency where I work and he asked me — he said he needed to verify something for a background check.
He asked me questions about St.
Catherine's.
About my sister." She looked at Alexander.
"You told me she had moved abroad.
That she didn't want to be found."
The room had gone completely still.
"You told me she was happy," Anna said.
The words came out broken at the edges.
"You sat across from me and you told me she had a good life and that reaching out would only cause her pain."
I looked at the man I had been twenty minutes from marrying.
"You knew," I said.
"You knew she was alive.
You knew where she was.
And you said nothing."
"It wasn't that simple." Alexander's voice had dropped.
He was no longer performing for the room.
"Mother had concerns.
About the timing.
About what it could mean for the family if—"
"If what?" My voice cracked on the second word.
"If I found out that my sister had been serving at your family's hotel for the last two years?
If I found out that she was standing thirty feet from me every time we had dinner in this building?"
He said nothing.
I looked at Victoria.
She had not moved.
She stood with her hands folded in front of her, and her expression had settled into something I recognized from every private conversation we had ever had — the look she wore when she had already decided that her version of events was the only one that mattered.
"How long have you known?" I asked her.
"This is not the appropriate setting for—"
"How long?"
Victoria lifted her chin.
"Since before the engagement."
Anna's hand went rigid in mine.
"I had your background investigated thoroughly before I permitted Alexander to propose," Victoria said.
"It is standard practice.
I found the sister.
I assessed the situation.
I made a decision that was in the best interest of this family."
"You made a decision," I repeated.
"Yes."
"You found my sister.
You knew she was alive.
You knew I had been looking for her for fifteen years." I took one step toward her.
"And you put her in an apron and stood her in your ballroom."
Something moved in Victoria's eyes.
Not guilt.
Calculation.
"She needed the work," Victoria said.
"I provided it.
That is more than most people in her position could expect."
Behind me, I heard Anna make a sound I had not heard since we were children — the particular sound of someone trying very hard not to fall apart in front of people who would use it against them.
I turned back to her.
Her free hand had come up to cover her mouth.
"Anna.
Look at me." I moved in front of her so she couldn't see Victoria.
"Look at me.
Not her.
Me."
She looked.
"I didn't know," I said.
"I promise you.
I didn't know any of this."
"I know," she whispered.
May you like
"I know you didn't."
A photographer near the side wall had not lowered his camera.
