I keep my eyes on the terrace. “Yes.”
The answer seems to satisfy him far more than it should.
“And your son?”
I look at Ethan then. Really look at him. At the tightness in his face. At the resentment he thinks he’s hiding. At the fact that he’s still too young to understand how transparent he becomes when something matters to him.
“What about him?”
Yuri lowers his voice even further. “How much trouble is this going to be?”
I should say none. I should say it will be managed and contained and folded quietly into the endless machinery of family and business and appearances.
Instead I say, “More than I’d like.”
Yuri nods as if that confirms something he suspected the moment he saw me walk across the lawn after her.
The brunch begins almost on time. That alone feels like a miracle.
The lawn has been set beautifully, I’ll give them that. White linen moving gently in the breeze. Pale flowers everywhere. Silver coffee service catching the morning light. The sort of polished, effortless elegance that only exists because fifty people have been up since dawn making sure it looks effortless.
Guests find their seats in drifting, expensive clusters. Chairs scrape softly over stone. Conversations rise and overlap. The string quartet has given up pretending this is intimate and settled into something bright and tasteful in the background.
Camille stands once everyone has settled. She lifts a champagne flute and smiles around the table, all pale silk and careful warmth, and the whole group quiets for her without needing to be asked.
“I just wanted to say a few words,” she says. “Because this is really the last morning before everything changes.”
A few soft laughs. A murmur of approval.
I look at my son.
He smiles at her. Good enough, from a distance.
Camille continues, voice bright and polished. “To new beginnings, to family, and to the future.”
Glasses rise. I lift mine because not doing so would turn this into something else, and I have no interest in explaining my mood to a lawn full of people before breakfast.
“To the future,” the table echoes.
Everyone drinks.
Breakfast begins in earnest a moment later. Plates arrive. Silver flashes in the morning light. Conversations break apart into smaller ones, lighter and easier now that the formal little performance has been completed.
I take two bites of eggs I do not want and answer a question from one of Camille’s uncles about shipping regulations with the bareminimum of civility. Halfway through his opinion on customs enforcement, I see Sienna again.
One of the servers brings me a glass of champagne with a smile. I shake my head and he moves on to the next table.
I keep my gaze on Sienna. She has finally stopped moving. Only because one of the servers has cornered her beside the side station with what looks like a question about coffee service. She nods, says something, takes a glass of water from the tray without really looking at it, and lifts it to her mouth.
Good.
Then, across the lawn, a chair tips over. The sound cuts through the soft noise of breakfast like a crack.
Everyone turns.
One of the bridesmaids is on her feet, hand at her throat, eyes huge. For one confused second I think she is choking. Then white foam gathers at the corner of her mouth.
She makes a terrible sound. Not a scream. Something smaller, cut off halfway.