Chapter 5- Rumors And Whispers

The headlines hit like a fist.

I’d learned, in the last few days, that your name could be rewritten faster than you could breathe. I woke to my face on the front page of every tabloid. Elena Carter: Abandoned at the Altar. The photos were flattering in a sick way: my dress, my veil, my stunned smile that had frozen into something else.

My phone would not stop. Messages, calls, push alerts. A video of the church with a caption that suggested more than it showed. Someone had already edited the night into a story that fit neatly into a headline, and people were eating it.

“They’re outside,” Clara said without knocking, like she always barged through doors when she thought I needed her.

“They’ll make a circus of it,” I muttered. “They’ll spin something and call it news.”

“We can spin back,” she said. “Get a lawyer and a PR person.”

“I don’t want PR,” I said. The words surprised me. I didn’t want speeches. I wanted the truth. I wanted Lucas to knock on a door and explain himself.

Damian’s text came in then: Gala tonight. Be ready. His command was simple, like a calendar invite. Under it, one line that felt like a brand: Control the story.

Control. That word again. I hated it. I loved it in the strangest way. I stared at the message and felt small and big all at once. I typed back, I don’t want to go.

His reply was immediate. You need to be seen with me.

So there was no real choice. There never was, not since the vows had been said under the flash and the whisper. I dressed because there was nowhere to run to and because Clara refused to let me look like anything less than defiant. She did my hair in a messy bun and slapped on lipstick like war paint.

“You sure about this?” she asked, tilting my chin up like I was a stubborn child.

“Sure as I’ll ever be,” I said. The lie tasted metallic.

The gala was one of those events where wealth dressed itself like charity. Crystal chandeliers, waiters floating with trays, patrons who smiled for causes that didn’t ask them to change. Cameras lined the red carpet. We walked through like we were floating on a stage and I hated every second.

Damian kept his hand at my elbow with a kind of careful possessiveness that made me breathe oddly. He introduced me to people like I was something surprising. His wife.

“Mrs. Blackwell,” a reporter cooed, microphone thrust forward. “How does it feel to be a Blackwell now?”

I stared at the woman like she’d asked me if I’d enjoy being auctioned. “Confusing,” I said. The answer came out like a confession. Cameras loved drama; they loved honesty even more.

Damian’s jaw tightened. He leaned close and murmured, “Stick to neutral. We don’t feed the wolves.”

Neutral. Control. Keep breathing. The phrases were a litany. I played the part because the cameras wanted a narrative, and they were impatient.

Between the speeches and the somber piano, someone handed me a program. On the back, a gossip column had printed a barely legible series of claims: sightings of Lucas at a downtown club. Rumors of debts. A snippet about Sophie smiling with a stranger. The more they printed, the less anything felt true.

“Who’d start these?” I asked Marcus later, when he came to stand behind us like a shadow that didn’t leave.

“People who want clicks,” he said. But the way he said it, like he could smell the author’s breath, made me think it was more complicated. “Or people who want you to look weak.”

“Why would anyone want that?” I asked.

He didn’t answer directly. “Keep your head down,” he said. “Let Damian handle the public. You need to conserve energy for the private.”

Private. The irony of that word wound hot in my chest. Private had been ruined for me. I thought of Lucas in a taxi, Sophie laughing, and the crowd outside the church. My stomach tightened.

Halfway through the evening, a woman from charity took my arm and complimented my dress with such practiced sweetness that I nearly threw up. People wanted to be seen in my orbit. They wanted the optics of mourning and power and the sad, staged bride who’d found shelter.

A waiter spilled champagne on the hem of my dress and the woman who’d complimented me pretended not to notice. To them, I was an accessory to be polished.

Damian excused me and led me to a quiet balcony that overlooked the skyline. For a moment it was just the city lights and the breath between us. He didn’t speak for a long time, which somehow felt heavier than if he’d offered a speech.

“You did well,” he said finally. His praise sounded like an order.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. My voice was small. “I’m a prop in a picture.”

“You walked with me,” he said. “That matters.”

“Why do you care?” I asked. “Why do you keep fighting for my image?”

He looked at me. For the first time since the wedding there was something like vulnerability there, or maybe calculation wrapped in a tender face. “Because when they look at you, they see me,” he said. “And I don’t like ugly things near my name.”

There it was, the angle: my reputation was not just mine. It belonged to his brand, his empire. And like any brand, it was defended.

He leaned in then, closer than necessary, and this time what he wanted to do with that closeness wasn’t just control. It was hunger. I hated the way my stomach flipped. I hated that I wanted it.

“You could tell me to leave,” he said, voice low.

“And go where?” I shot back. “My father won’t take me back with this scandal. The press will hunt me. Where would I go?”

He smiled. “You could stay,” he said. “You could be smart about this.”

“Being smart means being quiet?” I said. “It means swallowing things I don’t understand?”

He pressed his forehead to mine and for a second the world blurred into a single point of heat. “Sometimes surviving looks like quiet,” he said. “Sometimes it looks like war.”

Then my phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen. Unknown number: Meet me in the servants’ corridor. I can explain. —S

My breath stopped. Sophie. Her name seared into me like a brand. The message sounded honest and desperate. I hadn’t heard from her since the church and the sight of her name made my hands tremble.

I folded the phone shut and shoved it back into my clutch. The balcony felt too small. The gala felt like a stage.

“Who?” Damian started.

“Sophie says she wants to explain,” I said, the words tumbling out.

He watched me for a long moment. Then he gave a small nod. “Be careful,” he said. “Let Marcus know. Don’t go alone.”

Marcus appeared at my elbow like he had been there the whole time. His face was unreadable, steady as stone. He said, “I’ll come with you.”

The thought of meeting Sophie made my stomach flip. I felt anger, betrayal, curiosity, and a fierce need to know why the woman who’d laughed with me over brunch last month had chosen this.

As we made our way down the service stairs, the sound of the gala muffled behind us like memory. Marcus’s hand brushed mine. The corridor smelled of bleach and old tiles and something metallic that made me think of the church.

I pushed the heavy door open and the air outside felt colder, sharper. I stepped out into the alley and squinted. The night swallowed the shapes and the glow of city lights painted everything in an artificial gold.

A shadow moved. A figure stepped out from behind the dumpster.

“Sophie?” I whispered, my voice breaking.

It wasn’t Sophie.

It was someone in a raincoat, face hidden under a hood. He tossed something on the ground with a casual flick. I bent because I had to know. It was a small flash drive, wet with rain.

The man’s voice was soft and surprisingly familiar. “For you,” he said. “Play it when you’re alone.”

My hands were shaking as I pocketed the drive. I looked up but the man had already melted into the dark. Marcus’s hand gripped my elbow. “We should go,” he said.

We walked back toward the lights, my heart loud in my ears. The gala thrummed like a beast. I got home and found a computer and pressed play.

And then the image on the screen made my blood run cold.