“Mr. Hail. We saved the best table for you.”
They sat by the window while the skyline glittered below, and Chris reached for his phone before he even opened his menu. Vanessa pretended to laugh as she leaned toward him, but her voice sharpened under the sweetness.
“Can you not do that tonight?” she said. “Just for one dinner.”
“I’m working,” Chris replied without looking up.
“You’re always working,” she said, and her smile tightened, as if she were holding it together with willpower.
Chris set the phone down because the argument wasn’t worth the noise, and Vanessa immediately began talking about galas, vacation ideas, and a dress she wanted to order as if she could shop her way into becoming the permanent replacement for the woman who had disappeared.
Chris nodded at the right moments, but his mind drifted back to the same place it always did: coming home to silence, calling Lily’s phone until it went dead, walking through rooms that felt staged, as if someone had removed the only human part of his life.
A shadow fell across the table.
“Good evening,” a woman said gently. “Welcome to The Crown. Can I start you with something to drink?”
The voice was calm, polite, professional.
Chris’s body reacted before his mind could.
His breath caught. His hands went still. His eyes lifted slowly, as if he were afraid of what he might see.
And there she was.
Lily.
Wearing a black waitress uniform, holding a notepad, her expression carefully neutral in the way people learn to be neutral when neutrality is the only armor they have left.
Then Chris saw her belly, and the world inside his head went silent.
Leave a Comment