Chapter 5: The Crack in the Smile
I walked back into the ballroom alone.
Andrew was standing beside the table with his phone in his hand and a smile that had gone very slightly wrong at the edges — the kind of smile that only I knew how to read.
"There you are," he said.
"I needed air.
I told you."
"You were gone almost ten minutes."
"The corridor was quiet.
I stayed longer than I meant to."
He studied my face.
I had spent fourteen months learning to give him nothing to read, and I gave him nothing now.
"You look better," he said finally.
"I feel better."
He pulled out my chair.
I sat down.
Senator Collins was telling a story about a fishing trip in Montana and the table was laughing and Andrew poured me a glass of water and set it in front of me with the particular gentleness he always performed in public — the gesture that made everyone around us think: he takes such good care of her.
Ethan returned to the table three minutes later.
He sat down, picked up his fork, and asked Senator Collins a question about infrastructure funding that sent the conversation in a completely new direction.
He did not look at me once.
That was how I knew the meeting with the board chair was already happening.
The dessert course arrived.
Andrew's phone buzzed.
He glanced at it, and I watched his expression do something I had never seen it do before — a small, involuntary tightening around the eyes, gone in less than a second.
"Excuse me," he said pleasantly.
"Work never stops."
He stepped away from the table.
I watched him cross the room toward the far corridor — not the service corridor where I had been, but the main hallway near the coat check.
He walked at his normal pace.
Unhurried.
Controlled.
But he turned his back to the room before he looked at his phone again.
Ethan's voice came from directly beside me, low enough that only I could hear.
"The board chair has the folder.
He's made two calls in the last fifteen minutes.
One to the hospital's legal counsel.
One to the state medical board's emergency line."
I kept my eyes on my dessert plate.
"How do you know?"
"Because Marcus is standing twelve feet from him and the board chair is not trying to hide what he's doing."
"Andrew just got a message."
"I know."
I set my spoon down.
"He's going to figure out it came from tonight."
"Yes."
"He's going to figure out it came from me."
"Probably."
I finally looked at Ethan.
He was looking back at me with that same unreadable calm he'd had on stage — except now, up close, I could see it wasn't calm at all.
It was controlled fury, held so tightly it had gone completely still.
"I'm not going back to his apartment tonight," I said.
"No," Ethan said.
"You're not."
Andrew reappeared at the edge of the ballroom.
He was smiling again — the smile fully repaired, the performance back in place.
He crossed the room and rested his hand on the back of my chair.
"Everything all right?" Senator Collins asked.
"Always," Andrew said.
He looked down at me.
His thumb pressed once against the back of my neck, where no one could see.
"Ready to go soon, sweetheart?"
I looked up at him.
"Actually, Ethan needs me to stay for the post-event debrief.
Foundation business.
You know how it is."
Andrew's thumb stopped moving.
"I wasn't aware of any debrief," he said.
Ethan spoke from across the table without looking up from his water glass.
"I should have mentioned it earlier, Andrew.
Ava's been managing the donor coordination for this event for three months.
I need her notes before the night's over." He finally looked up.
"You understand."
It was not a question.
Andrew's smile stayed exactly where it was.
"Of course."
He leaned down and kissed my temple.
His lips were cold.
"I'll wait up," he said.
He straightened, said his goodbyes to the table, shook Senator Collins's hand, and walked out of the ballroom with the award tucked under his arm and every camera in the room catching his exit.
My phone buzzed on the table.
An unknown number.
I turned it over.
A text message.
May you like
Four words.
*I know it was you.*
