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“Silas is a decent man.”
At that, I snort. “Then you don’t know him like I do.” I stand.
“I’m going to call Higgins. He’ll make sure to draw up a solid prenup?—”
“Prenup? Why would I need that? If anything, Ethan should be asking me for one. I need to go.”
“Ophelia!”
“Mr. Hart. Time. Rules are the same for everyone in here,” a guard says.
Dad ignores him. “Has he asked you to sign one?”
“I hardly see how that matters. Look, I came because you’re my father. I don’t want to abandon you. But you’ve put me in a difficult place here too. Ethan is my fiancé. You can’t ask me to choose between them and you. They’re not asking that.” Not outright, at least. I feel shamefaced to have said it.
“No? You don’t know Sly Fox like I do, Phee. He has a plan.”
“I didn’t come to fight with you.”
“Mr. Hart, I’m sorry,” the prison guard says, and he takes my father’s arm to walk him out of the visiting room. When he stops for them to open the door, Dad looks back at me.
“Stay away from them, Phee. Please.”
11
OPHELIA
Past
When Heroes Break, part 1
Inever thought, not once, that the day Ethan proposed to me would leave me with a feeling of anything other than elation. Excitement. Exhilaration even.
I never thought I’d say anything other than yes.
When I met Ethan Fox almost a decade ago, I always knew there would be something between us. Our meeting and the circumstances of it were somehow always leading up to this day, to the event that would follow.
I stand in the lobby of my building and look down at the ring in the center of my palm,at the gleaming princess cut diamond on its platinum band weighing down my hand. It makes my stomach fill not with butterflies of excitement and anticipation of what is to come, but something else. Something anxious and a little like dread.
But maybe that’s because the day coincides with news leaked to the press of new evidence that incriminates my father in a scheme even more serious than what he is currently facing charges on. I wish Ethan had waited to propose, but he couldn’t have known my dad’s face would once again be plastered across every television screen, every news channel and newspaper.
The elevator doors ding, and I watch them slide open, but I just stand there. I don’t get on because my legs aren’t working. A moment later, they close again, and the elevator ascends up to the fourteenth floor without me. I turn away, back toward the glass doors, slipping the ring into the pocket of my coat.
I didn’t say yes. But he didn’t let me say no.
He’d placed the ring on my finger and told me to think about it and snapped his fingers for a waiter to bring champagne.
The Fox men are used to getting what they want.
I push the door open and step back out into the freezing night, a light flurry of snow falling. I huddle into my coat, draw the collar up, and am grateful for the dark night and the snow. It makes me anonymous somehow, allows me to hide my face.
I walk without seeing exactly where I’m going, notpaying too much attention. The effects of the champagne Ethan ordered have already dissipated, and I’m left cold but not numb.
My skinny heels, a gift from Ethan, aren’t made for walking in the city and certainly not in snow, and my bare legs are freezing. When I get to The Grande, a large Parisian style brasserie that I know doesn’t have a television behind the bar, I push through the ornate glass doors and am instantly consumed by warmth and noise and laughter.
I stand there for a minute and let the heat penetrate me before unwrapping my scarf, pulling off my hat, and undoing the top button of my coat. All the tables are full, the remnants of dinner dishes being cleared, while desserts and more cocktails are served. It’s Saturday night two weeks before Christmas, and everyone is out dressed in their best. The restaurant is opulently decorated, and Frank Sinatra is singing a holiday tune in the background of all the revelry.
A couple slides off their stools at the bar, the man helping the woman into her coat before he puts his own on. I make my way toward the empty chairs, undoing my coat as I go and slipping it off to drape over the high back of the stool before taking a seat.
