Chapter 275 That's Him
ADRIANA
I stood on the toilet seat with both feet so that no gap was visible at the bottom of the stall door, and I pressed my back against the wall and did not breathe, and I listened to the outer door open and close once, and then I counted to thirty in my head, and then I heard the man who remained moving toward the stalls.
He was checking.
I heard the first stall door pushed open. Then the second. Then the third. The fourth. I was in the last one. My heart was doing something I could feel in my throat.
“Justin.” A different voice, from the outer door. “Leave it. If someone had been in here they’d have come out.”
There was a heavy pause. Then the male voice spoke again. “I thought I saw someone.”
“You’re paranoid. Come on, I said I need to speak to the King.”
I heard their retreating footsteps and the sound of the door opening and closing.
I stayed exactly where I was for three full minutes before I came down from the toilet seat and unlocked the stall door and looked at my own face in the mirror.
The man I’d glimpsed through the crack in the stall. I saw his silhouette, the color of what he was wearing, the angle of his jaw. It wasn’t much. But combined with the voice of the man who had been giving orders, and the fact that one of them had just said he was going to approach Elijah directly, it was enough to work with.
I went back to the party.
Elijah was mid-conversation when I reached him and I put my hand on his arm in the way that meant not now but soon and he read it immediately and wrapped up the exchange within a minute.
“Has anyone come to speak to you in the last ten minutes?” I said, low and close. “Specifically about the children or about Lana?”
“No. What happened?”
“There were two men in the bathroom. I heard everything.” I scanned the room while I spoke. “One of them is wearing a navy suit. The other one I heard but didn’t see. They know the party wasn’t the reaction they expected. One of them is planning to approach you to read your reaction.”
Elijah’s jaw tightened but his face didn’t change. Seven months ago I would have worried about that. Now I knew it meant he was processing and choosing his response with precision.
“Hazel,” he said, looking across the room.
Hazel appeared at my side within thirty seconds as though she’d been waiting for the summons. I told her what I’d told Elijah, adding the description of the navy suit and the direction the man had gone when he left the bathroom.
“Find him,” I said. “Don’t approach yet. Just find him and keep him in your line of sight.”
She moved into the crowd and I turned back to the room and felt the particular focused clarity of someone who had stopped waiting for something to happen and understood that it was already happening.
“The man from Hazel’s original list has moved back into the main room. He’s been watching you for the last ten minutes.”
“I know,” I said. “Let him watch.”
“And the couple—”
“Penelope.” The woman had finally collapsed to one knee and was looking at me from a position that was indignity dressed up as appeal. Her husband stood beside her with the expression of a man who had married someone who had just gotten them both into something he couldn’t get them out of.
“My Queen.” Penelope’s voice was strained. “Please. My legs, I can’t hold this position any longer. I’m sorry. We’re sorry. What we said about the Prince was wrong and we acknowledge it.”
I looked at her for a moment. Then I looked at Leo, who was watching the exchange with the calm of someone who had decided weeks ago not to give this particular fight more energy than it deserved.
“Say it to him,” I said. “Not to me.”
Penelope turned her head to Leo with the specific expression of someone swallowing something they’d rather not. Her husband followed suit.
“We apologize, Your Highness,” her husband said, with the flatness of someone reading from a document they hadn’t written. “Our earlier positions regarding your claim were wrong.”
Leo looked at them for exactly as long as was necessary to make the point. “Rise.”
They rose. They left quickly, which was the right instinct.
I caught Elijah’s eye across the room. He gave me the smallest nod. Hazel had found the man in the navy suit.
A figure approached the table, someone I didn’t know well, a face from the outer edges of the guest list, a man who moved with the specific calibrated ease of someone who had rehearsed his approach. He greeted Elijah with warmth that didn’t quite reach his eyes, accepted the response, and then turned to me.
“My Queen, what a wonderful evening. And the children — I hope everyone is well? The little princess especially?”
There it was.
Elijah’s head came up by a fraction. I felt it without looking.
“Everyone is perfectly well,” I said, with a warmth that matched his exactly. “Thank you so much for asking. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
He held my gaze for half a second longer than the pleasantry required, and then he moved away, and I watched him go, and I reached under the table and put my hand on Elijah’s and pressed once.
That’s him.