Chapter 37 BEFORE FRIDAY
NOVA'S POV
"You don't owe me an explanation," I said, cutting short whatever he had to say.
My voice came out more steady than I expected. And I was a little surprised by that.
Callum opened his mouth to say something but I kept going.
"What you do in your office is your business. Who you spend your time with is your business. I made my choices and I said what I said on Saturday and I meant it, so you don't need to stand here and explain anything to me. You really don't."
Every word was true. I had not planned any of it and it was all completely true and that made it harder to say, not easier.
He listened without interrupting. Just stood there and let me finish and then looked at me for a moment with that expression I had never once been able to read properly, not when I was sixteen and not now.
Then he said, quietly. "Is that really what you think you saw?"
I did not answer that.
"Goodnight, Callum," I said, and I walked upstairs.
I lay on my bed for an hour looking at the ceiling before I gave up and went back down.
The kitchen light was on. Elias was at the counter eating leftover pasta straight out of the container with a fork, not even bothering with a bowl, his hair going in four different directions like he had already tried to sleep and abandoned the idea.
He looked up when I came in, clocked me, and held out his fork without any fuss.
"There's more if you want it. Riley made too much again."
"I'll get my own fork," I said.
I got a bowl and served myself and sat on the counter across from him and we ate without talking for a while.
It was the most normal thing I had felt all day.
"Friday is going to be a lot," Elias said eventually, not looking up from the container. "The awards, I mean. It's always a whole production."
"Yeah." I pushed pasta around my bowl. "Matthias asked me to go with him."
"I know." He said it simply, no edge in it, no performance of any kind. "I figured he would." He looked up at me. "I hope it's not too much, being in that room with all of us. I know it's a weird situation."
"I can handle weird situations," I said.
The corner of his mouth moved. "I know you can."
We finished eating and Elias washed both our dishes without being asked, and I said goodnight and went back upstairs.
I lay in the dark and thought about Friday. The Grand Meridian Hotel and the cameras and Matthias's hand at my back and Callum somewhere across the room.
Vanessa would be there too, I was almost certain of it, probably in something red, probably right beside him. I would have to walk through all of it with my face composed and my shoulders straight and give nobody anything to read.
I told myself I could do it.
I was still telling myself that when I finally fell asleep.
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VANESSA’S POV / MADISON’S HOME
Madison's living room was warm and I had been pacing for twenty minutes. Madison had told me twice to sit down and I had ignored her both times.
"Tell me again," she said from the sofa, a wine glass on her knee.
"I already told you."
"Tell me the part about him pushing you off his lap again."
I stopped and turned to face her. "She opened the door, he looked at her face, and he pushed me off his lap. Like I had burned him. Like he needed to get away from me immediately." I pressed my fingers against my mouth for a second. "
Madison was quiet for a moment. "That's not a man who is undecided."
"I know."
"That's a man who—"
"I know what it is." I sat down finally, dropping onto the sofa because my legs were tired. "I just needed to hear someone else say it so I could stop pretending otherwise."
She topped up my glass without being asked. "So what's the plan for Friday?"
"I go early. I make sure I am photographed with Callum before she arrives and before the press starts circulating properly. I work the room and I make it clear to everyone there that I belong in that space and she does not."
Madison nodded slowly. "And the other thing? The thing you mentioned on the phone?"
I picked up my wine glass and looked at it.
Three days ago I received a message from a private number. From someone who had clearly done their research before reaching out, someone who knew about my history with Callum and my father's connection to Richard.
He knew exactly how much I stood to lose if Nova Sinclair planted herself permanently inside that family.
He had made me an offer and I had spent two days sitting on it because the scale of it made something in my stomach tighten when I thought about it too directly.
Monday had changed things.
"His name is Matthias Hale," I said.
Madison set her glass down.
"He reached out to me three days ago. He said if I helped him get what he needed on Friday night, he would make sure Callum Blackthorn lost everything he had ever worked for." I paused. "Everything he had ever cared about."
Madison stared at me. "Vanessa."
"Including her," I said.
The fire in the corner crackled once in the silence.
Madison's voice dropped. "Vanessa. Nova is going to that event as his date. If he is planning to use her to get to Callum, that means she could actually get hurt."
I looked at the fire and said nothing for a moment.
When I spoke my voice came out quieter than I expected.
"She should have stayed gone.”