"Breathe, Vivian. Just breathe."
Nate's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. I was sitting on the marble floor of the ladies' room, my back against the cold wall, shards of champagne glass scattered around my silver dress.
"She's dead," I whispered. "She's been dead for ten years."
"Apparently not."
I looked up at him, my vision blurring. "You saw her too, right? Tell me you saw her too."
"I saw her."
"Then I'm not going crazy."
"That's debatable." Nate crouched beside me, his face serious. "Vivian, we need to get you out of here. People are starting to ask questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"The kind that involve words like 'breakdown' and 'psychiatric hold.'"
I laughed, but it came out sharp and broken. "Maybe that's what I need. Maybe I've finally lost it completely."
"You haven't lost anything. But you need to pull yourself together before Evans comes looking for you."
"Evans." The name felt foreign on my tongue. "He knew. He had to have known."
"We don't know that."
"Don't we?" I struggled to my feet, ignoring Nate's offered hand. "He's been asking questions about my family. Daniel told me. And now suddenly my dead sister appears on his arm?"
"Vivian, "
"I need to see her. I need to talk to her."
"That's not a good idea."
"I don't care if it's a good idea." I smoothed my dress, trying to compose myself. "I need answers."
Nate grabbed my arm as I moved toward the door. "What if she doesn't want to talk to you?"
"Then I'll make her want to."
I found her on the terrace, alone for the first time since her grand entrance. She stood at the railing, the city lights painting her profile in gold and shadow. From behind, she looked exactly like she had at nine years old, the same delicate shoulders, the same way of holding her head when she was thinking.
"Bella."
She turned slowly, and I saw her face properly for the first time. The years had carved away the softness of childhood, leaving sharp cheekbones and a mouth that seemed made for cruelty. But her eyes, those were still the same dark brown I remembered.
"Hello, Vivian."
Her voice was different. Older, obviously, but colder too. There was no warmth in it, no recognition of the bond we'd once shared.
"You're alive." The words came out like an accusation.
"How observant."
"Where have you been? For ten years, where have you been?"
She turned back to the city view, her hands graceful on the railing. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters! I thought you were dead. I thought I killed you."
"Did you?"
The question hit me like a physical blow. "What?"
"Did you kill me, Vivian? Is that what you thought you did?"
"I... the pool. You drowned. I couldn't save you."
"Couldn't? Or wouldn't?"
I stared at her, my mouth opening and closing like a fish. "I tried to save you. I pulled you out. I got help."
"After you pushed me in."
"I didn't push you. You jumped. You dared yourself to jump from the diving board."
"Is that what you tell yourself?" She faced me again, her eyes glittering with something I couldn't name. "Is that the story you've been living with all these years?"
"It's not a story. It's what happened."
"What happened," she said, her voice deadly quiet, "is that you were jealous. You were always jealous of me. And when you saw your chance, you took it."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? You were twelve, Vivian. Old enough to know better. Old enough to know that pushing your little sister into the deep end of a pool could kill her."
"I didn't push you!" The words exploded out of me. "I would never hurt you. I loved you."
"Love?" She laughed, and the sound was like breaking glass. "You loved the idea of me. The perfect little sister who looked up to you, who followed you around like a puppy. But when I started to grow up, when I started to have my own thoughts and dreams, you couldn't stand it."
"You're wrong."
"Am I? Then tell me, Vivian, why didn't you come looking for me?"
The question caught me off guard. "What?"
"If you really thought I was dead, if you really believed you'd lost me, why didn't you come to my funeral? Why didn't you visit my grave?"
My chest tightened. "Because... because Dad said..."
"Dad said what?"
"He said I wasn't welcome. He said it was my fault."
"And you believed him."
"Of course I believed him. Why would he lie about something like that?"
Bella's smile was sharp as a knife. "Why indeed."
She started to walk past me, heading back toward the ballroom, but I caught her arm.
"Wait. Please. I need to understand. How are you alive? Where have you been?"
She looked down at my hand on her arm, then back up at my face. "Let go of me."
"Not until you tell me the truth."
"The truth?" She pulled free with surprising strength. "The truth is that you're exactly what I thought you'd become. Pathetic. Desperate. Clinging to a man who doesn't want you, living in a house where you don't belong."
"That's not, "
"Evans told me about you. How you showed up at his door three years ago, broken and begging. How you've been throwing yourself at him ever since, hoping he'd notice you. How you've been playing house in his home like a stray cat he was too polite to put outside."
Each word was a dagger, precise and brutal. "He wouldn't say those things."
"Wouldn't he? Ask him yourself. Ask him why he really took you in. Ask him what he knows about our family."
"What does that mean?"
But she was already walking away, her emerald dress flowing behind her like water.
"Bella, wait!"
She paused at the French doors leading back to the ballroom. "My name is Isabella now. Bella died ten years ago, remember? You made sure of that."
I found Evans in his study twenty minutes later, sitting behind his massive oak desk with a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. He looked up when I entered, but his expression was unreadable.
"We need to talk."
"I assumed we would." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Sit."
"I'd rather stand."
"Suit yourself." He took a sip of his whiskey. "I suppose you have questions."
"One or two." I crossed my arms, trying to look stronger than I felt. "Starting with how long you've known my sister was alive."
"A while."
"How long is a while?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me!"
He set down his glass and looked at me properly for the first time. "Careful, Vivian. You're showing your emotions."
"My emotions? My sister, who I thought was dead, just announced her engagement to you in front of half of New York. I think I'm entitled to some emotions."
"Your sister made her own choices."
"What choices? What are you talking about?"
Evans stood and walked to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. "There are things you don't understand about that night. About what really happened."
"Then explain them to me."
"I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
"Both."
I felt like screaming. "This is insane. You're talking in riddles, Bella, Isabella, is acting like I tried to murder her, and I'm supposed to just accept that my entire life has been built on a lie?"
"Has it?"
"What?"
He turned to face me, his eyes dark and unreadable. "Has your life been built on a lie, Vivian? Or have you been lying to yourself?"
"I don't know what that means."
"Don't you?"
I stared at him, searching his face for some hint of the man I thought I knew. The man who had saved me, who had given me shelter, who had been my anchor in the storm of my broken life.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
"I'm exactly who I've always been."
"No. The man I thought I knew wouldn't do this. He wouldn't keep something like this from me."
"The man you thought you knew doesn't exist, Vivian. He never did."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I felt my knees start to buckle, but I forced myself to stay upright.
"I need to know the truth. About that night. About what happened to Bella."
"Isabella."
"Whatever she calls herself now. I need to know."
"No," Evans said quietly. "You don't. Some truths are too dangerous to know."
"Dangerous for who?"
"For everyone."
I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "More dangerous than living with the guilt of thinking I killed my own sister? More dangerous than spending ten years hating myself for something I might not have even done?"
"Yes."
The certainty in his voice made my blood run cold. "What aren't you telling me?"
"I'm telling you to let it go. Accept that Isabella is alive, accept that she's chosen to be with me, and move on."
"Move on to what? You're the only family I have left."
"I was never your family."
The words were quiet, but they destroyed me completely. I felt everything inside me break apart, all the carefully constructed walls I'd built around my heart crumbling at once.
"Then what was I to you?"
Evans poured himself another whiskey, his movements precise and controlled. "You were convenient."
"Convenient."
"A project. A charity case. Something to occupy my time."
"I don't believe you."
"Believe what you want. It doesn't change the facts."
I stood there for a long moment, waiting for him to take it back, to tell me he was lying, to show me some sign of the man I'd fallen in love with. But he just stood there, silent and cold as stone.
"I see." My voice sounded strange, distant. "And now that you have Isabella, you don't need your charity case anymore."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
I walked toward the door, my legs moving on autopilot. At the threshold, I turned back.
"One more question."
"What?"
"That night. The night I came to you. How did you know I would come?"
For just a moment, something flickered in his eyes. Fear, maybe. Or guilt.
"I didn't."
"Liar."
The word hung in the air between us like a curse. Evans raised his glass to his lips, but I saw his hand shake slightly.
"Good night, Vivian."
I left him there with his whiskey and his secrets, and walked back to my room on unsteady legs. But as I climbed the stairs, one thought kept circling in my mind like a vulture.
If Bella never drowned, if she never died, then what happened that night ten years ago? And why couldn't I remember?