The Night They Left Me Behind
The crystal bowl slipped from my hands and shattered across the kitchen floor just as my husband walked into the room.
I froze beside the marble island.
Dinner was ready.
The salmon was still warm, the vegetables had been arranged exactly the way my mother-in-law preferred, and every place setting in the dining room had been checked twice.
Still, Claudia Prescott looked at the broken porcelain as if I had deliberately ruined her evening.
“Eight years, Elowen,” she said coldly. “Eight years in this family, and somehow you still manage to make everything look ordinary.”
I crouched to collect the pieces.
My husband, Weston Prescott, stood near the doorway wearing a charcoal tuxedo.
He glanced at me briefly before returning his attention to his phone.
“Be careful with the floor,” he said. “That marble was imported.”
I stared at him.
Not Are you okay?
Not Did you cut yourself?
He was worried about the floor.
That should have told me everything.
Instead, I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and asked the question I had been waiting all week to ask.
“What time are we leaving?”
Weston looked up.
“Leaving for what?”
I thought he was joking.
“The Meridian Heritage Gala.”
His mother turned away, hiding a smile.
His younger sister, Tatum, was standing near the dining room entrance in a pale blue evening dress.
She looked at me with an expression that was almost pity.
Weston sighed.
“Elowen, you’re not coming.”
For several seconds, I simply stared at him.
The Meridian Heritage Gala was one of the most important charity and business events in Charleston, South Carolina.
Investors, hospital executives, developers, philanthropists, and journalists would all be there.
More importantly, the gala would host the first public appearance of the famously private chairwoman of Wrenford Capital.
Weston’s company, Prescott Urban Partners, had received hundreds of millions of dollars through funds connected to Wrenford over the previous six years.
He had spent months talking about tonight.
Yet apparently, his wife had never been part of the plan.
“Why am I not coming?”
Weston adjusted his cuff link.
“Because tonight isn’t a family dinner.
I need someone beside me who understands investors, cameras, and professional conversation.”
Claudia gave a soft laugh.
“He needs someone who looks like she belongs there.”
I looked down at my cream blouse and simple black skirt.
Then the front door opened.
A woman entered without knocking.
Sloane Vickers.
Weston’s vice president of communications.
And, apparently, his date.
She wore a deep crimson gown and carried a small designer clutch.
Her dark hair was swept elegantly over one shoulder.
She walked directly to my husband and placed one hand against his arm.
“The car is waiting.”
