Fiona
I didn't sleep much after the gala. I lay awake for hours after Archie's driver dropped me off, still in the emerald dress because I hadn't found the energy to change out of it, staring at the ceiling and replaying the entire evening in fragments. The dance floor. His hand at the small of my back. The kiss he pressed to the back of my hand, gentle and certain, like he had all the time in the world to be careful with me.
And underneath all of it, Ruth's face across the ballroom, watching me with that dawning, terrified recognition that I still hadn't fully shaken loose from my chest.
She hadn't approached me. She hadn't said anything, as far as I knew, to anyone at the gala. But I'd caught her staring twice more before the night ended, and I understood with a sick certainty that wh
