Chapter Five
The Perfect Wife
The Lancaster family dinner was held in a townhouse that cost more than most countries' foreign reserves. I arrived in a dress I'd designed myself — deep burgundy silk, structured shoulders, a neckline that suggested confidence without begging for attention.
I'd been briefed by Clara: Lancaster's mother had passed away years ago. His father, Richard, had remarried. Two board members and their wives. A handful of inner circle.
And Vanessa Blackwood.
I'd known she would be there. I hadn't known she would position herself at the door.
She was beautiful in the way that expensive things are beautiful — deliberate, maintained, designed to provoke. She extended her hand with a smile that reached nowhere near her eyes.
"Sophia. What a surprise this all was."
"For me too," I said pleasantly, and shook her hand.
She didn't move to let me pass. "We've all been wondering — how does it feel? To marry someone who didn't choose you for love?"
The room wasn't silent. But it was listening.
I looked at her for a long moment. Kept my face exactly as it was.
"The same way it feels," I said, "for every woman in this room, I imagine." I smiled. "Now, if you'll excuse me."
I moved past her. Kept my spine straight. Kept my hands still.
Don't count tiles, I told myself. Walk.
Dinner was a performance I was reasonably good at. I'd grown up in this world, or near enough to it. I knew which fork and which laugh and which silence. I spoke when spoken to and deflected the pointed questions with the precision of someone who has designed armor for a living.
But by the second course I felt it — the low, constant pressure of a room testing whether I belonged.
Then my phone, on silent in my bag, buzzed three times.
I excused myself to the hallway.
Lucas.
I answered.
"How is it going." Not quite a question.
"Fine." I kept my voice steady. "How did you—"
"James is there. He sends updates." A pause. "Vanessa."
"Handled."
A beat of silence. "Go back in," he said. "Put me on speaker."
"Lucas, that's not—"
"Sophia. Speaker."
I walked back to the table, phone in hand. Every eye tracked me.
"Forgive me," I said, taking my seat. "My husband wanted to say hello."
I set the phone on the table. His voice came through, clear and cool, filling the room the way his presence would have.
"Richard. Caroline. I'm sorry to miss the evening." A pause that felt deliberate. "Please make my wife comfortable. She is the most capable person in that room."
He hung up.
The table was very quiet for a moment.
Richard Lancaster — silver-haired, appraising — looked at me with something that was almost respect. "He doesn't call from London for nothing," he said.
"No," I agreed. "He doesn't."
I picked up my fork.
Across the table, Vanessa Blackwood's smile had gone rigid at the edges.
I didn't allow myself to feel anything about that.
Almost.
