A week later, the atmosphere in the penthouse shifted from cold to suffocating.
"We're hosting a dinner tonight," Foster announced over his morning coffee, not bothering to look up from his tablet. "Ava is officially joining as the Art Consultant. I want to welcome her properly."
"Of course," Celena said, buttering her toast with mechanical precision. "How many guests?"
"Just us. And Ava. Oh, and she's bringing her foster child. The poor kid has nowhere else to go."
Celena paused. "A child?"
"Leo. He's five. Try not to scare him with your sour face."
At 7:00 PM, the doorbell rang.
Ava swept in wearing a silk dress that cost more than Celena's entire wardrobe. Beside her was a small boy with unruly dark hair and a scowl that mirrored Foster's perfectly.
"Leo, say hello to Mrs. Baird," Ava cooed, though her eyes mocked Celena.
Leo looked at Celena, marched up to her, and kicked her hard in the shin.
"Ouch!" Celena stumbled back, gripping the console table.
Ava laughed, a tinkling, fake sound. "Oh, he's just high spirits! He doesn't like strangers."
"I live here," Celena said through gritted teeth.
"Right. Well." Ava breezed past her into the living room.
Dinner was a torture session. Celena served the roast she had spent three hours cooking. Foster ignored her, focusing entirely on Leo.
"Do you want me to cut that for you, sport?" Foster asked, his voice tender in a way Celena had never heard. He sliced the boy's meat with surgical care.
Celena watched them. She watched the way Leo held his fork-clumsily, aggressively.
Then, Leo dropped his napkin. Frustrated, he reached up and rubbed his left earlobe with his thumb and forefinger, tugging it rhythmically.
Celena froze. The wine bottle in her hand hovered over Foster's glass.
Foster let out a sigh as the cork on the second bottle crumbled. Frustrated, he reached up. He rubbed his left earlobe with his thumb and forefinger.
The exact same motion. The exact same rhythm.
The world narrowed down to those two hands.
Celena looked at Leo's eyes. One was a deep, chocolate brown. The other was a flecked hazel-green. Heterochromia.
Foster's mother, Victoria Baird, had the exact same eyes. Celena had seen those mismatched eyes a hundred times at family gatherings, but in her desperate need to believe in the perfect life she thought she had, her brain had simply refused to make the connection. Until now. Now, with the veil of love torn away, the truth was brutally, painfully obvious.
It wasn't just an affair. It wasn't just a fake marriage.
Leo wasn't a foster child. He was Foster's son.
They had a child. A five-year-old child. Which meant this affair had been going on for at least six years. Before she even met Foster.
"I want ice cream!" Leo shouted, slamming his fist on the table.
"We don't have ice cream, Leo," Celena said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears.
Foster snapped his head toward her. "Then go get some. God, Celena, can't you do anything right?"
He pulled his wallet out and slid his credit card across the mahogany table. It spun and stopped at her fingertips.
"Go. Vanilla. And don't take all night."
Ava placed her hand on Foster's knee under the table. Celena saw the shift in fabric. She saw the smirk Ava tried to hide behind her wine glass.
Celena picked up the card. It felt cold and heavy.
"Sure," she said.
She walked out of the apartment. She took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out into the cool night air.
She didn't go to the bodega on the corner. She walked three blocks to a bank ATM.
She inserted Foster's card. She knew the PIN. It was his birthday. Narcissist.
She checked the balance. Then she hit 'Withdraw'. She took out the daily maximum. Five hundred dollars.
She stared at the cash. It was nothing compared to what she was worth now, but this was his.
She went to a drugstore and bought a pint of generic, freezer-burned vanilla ice cream for four dollars.
Walking back, she looked up at the penthouse window. They were up there, playing happy family. They thought she was the servant, the barrier, the fool.
She wasn't the barrier. She was the bank. And she was about to foreclose.
She re-entered the apartment. Foster and Leo were on the floor building a tower with blocks. Ava was lounging on the sofa, her shoes off.
"Finally," Foster grumbled.
Celena set the ice cream on the table with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. A smile that was all teeth.
"Enjoy," she said.
---
