Page 81 of The Encore’s Crown

Ronan drops into the booth beside him. “If you stare at that phone any harder, she’s gonna feel that shit through the screen.”

Rafe looks up. “I wasn’t staring.”

“You’ve checked whether she’s messaged six times since the elevator.”

“She’s probably asleep, or getting ready for work.”

“Then why do you keep checking the damn thing?”

Rafe’s gaze narrows. “Why do you keep talking?”

“I’m Irish—it’s a biological compulsion, Romeo.”

Rafe bursts out laughing, and fuck, we all needed that sound. He slaps Ronan on the shoulder. The bottle arrives before Rithy can answer with whatever clever insult I can see written all over his face. It's the same whiskey, same glasses, same ridiculous presentation involving a silver tray and one enormous block of ice carved with the club’s insignia that stunned us into awe that first night. Rithy pours the round.

He lifts his glass first. “Still fucking here.”

It’s the same toast every time. Our toast to the fact that the four of us can now enter through the private elevator instead of arguing with security on the pavement. We touch our glasses together.

“Still fucking here,” Ronan repeats.

Rafe says it quietly. I nod and drink. The whiskey burns all the way down. Shame it can’t burn out the part I don’t want to talk about. Around us, the club flows with music and expensive conversation. Waiters move through the room carrying champagne beneath sparklers. A woman laughs near the bar and my head turns before I can stop it. All I see is pale hair beneath blue light. But it's the wrong shade. The wrong woman. She turns, and her face is nothing like Natalia’s. I reach for my phone.

I saw her story earlier over lunch. Her in the middle of a crowded club, smiling like Japan had never happened. That same prick from New Year's Eve was with her. He had an arm around her shoulders. Her body turned toward the camera in that effortless way she has, like she knows exactly where every eye in the room will land. I reacted before I could think better of it.

A heart. It was stupid and selfish. The digital equivalent of reaching for her after I’d already told her I wouldn’t. She would have seen it by now. I open Instagram beneath the table and type the first letters of her name into the search bar. Nothing comes up. For a second, I think the connection is bad. The signal icon is full, but I search again anyway, slower this time. Natalia Sawadzka.

No profile or photos. No little circle around her face telling me she’s posted something new. The understanding lands slowly, then all at once. My shoulders sag. She blocked me. The music drops, bass thumping. Rithy's saying something to Ronan. Rafe’s phone lights up and his entire expression changes before he tries to hide it. The harbor glitters outside the windows like nothing's wrong.

I stare at the empty search results. What did I expect? I asked her to believe me in Nagoya, then called from Osaka and made every promise sound like something she’d imagined. She told me this was the last time she'd tolerate my bullshit. I guess she meant it. Good for her, I think, even though it hurts. I lock the phone and slide it facedown onto the table.

Rithy glances at me. His eyes stay on my face for another second, but Ronan starts complaining about the whiskey pour and the moment passes. I take another drink. She shut the door. I've got no right to knock after setting fire to the hallway. Maybe this is better, or for the best or whatever bullshit people say when something terrible happens and they want to pretend it's fine.

Ronan is midway through telling us about a woman who tried to climb into his lap at the hotel bar in Nagoya when his entire face changes. He stops speaking; then his mouth actually falls open. I follow his stare toward the opposite side of the room. The glass in my hand goes still.

Radhika Malhotra stands near the private bar beneath a chandelier made from hundreds of suspended pieces of crystal. She’s surrounded by people, though surrounded isn’t the right word. People arrange themselves around Radhika. They always have.

She's wearing midnight-blue silk cut close through the waist, one shoulder bare, diamonds at her ears catching every beam of light. Her dark hair falls in a smooth wave down her back. There’s a man beside her speaking into her ear, some actor I recognize without knowing his name, but she isn’t listening. She’s smiling at a woman across from her, one hand wrapped around the stem of a champagne glass.

Almost ten years, and I know the exact moment the smile is real. I know how the corner of her mouth lifts first. How her eyes narrow when she’s trying not to laugh. How she lowers her chin because her mother once told her actresses should never throw their heads back in public.

She's still as stunning as the day I broke her heart.

Ronan slowly sets down his glass. “I swear I’ve just seen a ghost.”

Rithy turns. His reaction is instant as his face opens with something close to joy.

“No fucking way.”

Rafe looks over last. For the first time since Kasia got on that plane, something brightens behind his eyes. He straightens, staring across the club as though the universe has finally offered him something more interesting than his own misery.

“Radhika,” he says.

She hasn’t seen us yet. Or she has and is pretending she hasn’t. Both are definitely possible.

Ronan leans forward. “How is that woman somehow more beautiful than she was ten years ago?”

“Money,” Rithy says.