Chapter 282: Her Beauty Is Her Only Currency

Sam’s story about Angelika Sinclair hung in the air. The womanizer with his hand on her waist. The smile that looked like it hurt. The predator circling his prey on the dance floor below.

Audrey set her bourbon down.

"She’s probably being pressured by her family."

Sam looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"The Sinclairs have been trying to recover their standing for years. Angelika was supposed to be their ticket back in. It didn’t work out that way."

"What happened?"

Audrey paused. She wasn’t the type to gossip, Arianne knew. She was the type to gather information and hold it until it became relevant. Tonight it had become relevant.

"Do you remember her marriage? To Jacob Taylor?"

Sam nodded. "Ten years ago, right? The Taylors. Old money. It was a big wedding. I remember the photographs. She looked beautiful."

"She did. And for seven years, she played the perfect wife. The charity galas. The social appearances. Everything the Sinclairs needed her to be." Audrey’s voice was measured. "Then it came out. Jacob was already married. A stripper, a year before the wedding. He’d hidden it — buried the paperwork, paid people off, kept the secret. When it finally surfaced, the legal reality was brutal. The marriage was never valid. It was annulled. Erased."

Sam’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. "Wait. If the marriage was invalid, why did everyone say they got divorced?"

"Because both families wanted it that way. The Taylors and the Sinclairs collaborated on the story. ’Divorce’ sounds like a marriage that ran its course. ’Annulment due to prior undisclosed marriage’ is a scandal that destroys reputations. They thought they could contain it."

"But people know the truth."

"People always know. Staff talk. Lawyers talk. The stripper sold her story to a tabloid six months later. The details leaked despite the cleanup." Audrey picked up her glass again. "That made it worse for Angelika. She wasn’t just the victim of a failed marriage. She was the victim of a cover-up. And she had to stand there and pretend it was just a divorce while everyone whispered the truth behind their hands."

Sam was quiet for a moment. "So she couldn’t even defend herself."

"She couldn’t do anything. If she publicly admitted it was an annulment, she’d be exposing her own family’s lie. The Sinclairs helped construct the divorce story. They trapped her in it."

"And now they’re forcing her to find someone else."

"Probably. The Sinclairs don’t have much left. Their name is tarnished, their money isn’t what it was. Angelika is their last asset. But she’s a divorcee now — or that’s what the world calls her. She has no career. No independent standing. What she has is her face. Her figure. That’s what her family is selling."

"And everyone who matters knows the truth about the annulment anyway," Audrey continued. "They know she was never legally married. They know she spent seven years as someone’s secret second wife. That makes her damaged goods in their eyes — not respectable enough for a proper marriage, but attractive enough for attention." She set her glass down. "So she’s here. Hoping someone with money and influence will overlook the scandal in exchange for her face."

Sam stared at her wine. "Seven years. Seven years of marriage that never legally existed. And she just had to smile and pretend." She shook her head slowly. "That’s awful."

"Yes," Audrey said. "It is."

Arianne’s expression remained neutral through all of it. But something shifted behind her eyes. Not sympathy, exactly. She knew Angelika Sinclair. Knew what it felt like to be reduced to your utility, to be valued only for what you could provide to other people. The difference was that Arianne had clawed her way out. Angelika was still trapped, smiling through it, her beauty the only currency her family had left to spend.

"She must have felt humiliated." Arianne’s voice was even. "Angelika is proud. She always has been. Being paraded around like this — knowing everyone knows what happened and no one will say it — that’s worse than the marriage ending. And she can’t even defend herself without betraying her family."

Sam looked at her. "You knew her?"

"She’s a year younger than me and Alex. Same middle school. Same high school." Arianne reached for a piece of cold fried food from Sam’s abandoned plate. "She was the queen bee. The one everyone wanted to be or befriend. She walked through those hallways like she owned them."

"And she didn’t like you."

"No. She didn’t."

"Because you were close to Gilbert. And especially to Alex."

Arianne’s expression flickered. "She had a crush on Alex?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Everyone had a crush on Alex. Angelika just took it personally that he spent all his time with you." Sam shrugged. "You were the girl who got to stand next to the boy she wanted. That’s all it takes, sometimes."

Arianne frowned. The same old assumption. Her and Alex. Always her and Alex. She’d been hearing it since high school, since those hallways Angelika used to rule, since the whispers that followed her and Alex through every classroom and every cafeteria and every school function. People had always looked at the two of them and seen something that wasn’t there.

"I don’t understand why people keep misunderstanding me and Alex." There was no anger in her voice. Just exhaustion. An old, worn exhaustion that had been sitting in her chest for years. "No one ever assumed anything about me and Gilbert. Gilbert and I were just as close. We spent just as much time together. But it was always Alex. Always that assumption."

Sam leaned back against the velvet. She swirled her wine, watching the light catch the glass. When she spoke, her voice was different than before — less playful, more careful. The voice of someone who’d thought about this for a long time and was finally saying it aloud.

"You might not see it. But when you and Alex stood next to each other — it was like watching two halves of something. Not romantic. Not like that." She paused, searching for the words. "More like a partnership. Like you were two sides of the same coin. Like twins. Like Lily and Leo."

Arianne went still.

"You balanced each other," Sam continued. "He was the warmth. You were the steel. He was the one who smiled at everyone, and you were the one who figured out what they wanted behind the smile. People saw that — saw how complete you looked together — and they assumed it must be romantic. Because people are simple. They don’t understand that two people can be essential to each other without being in love."

The music from the dance floor pulsed through the walls. The ice in Audrey’s bourbon had melted, the glass sweating onto the table. Sam’s fried food had gone completely cold.

Arianne was quiet.

"I never thought of it that way," she said finally.

"Most people don’t see themselves clearly," Audrey offered. Her voice was gentle. "Especially not from the outside. You only see the assumptions. You don’t see what other people see."

Sam nodded. "Alex was your person. Not your lover. Your person. There’s a difference." She paused. "Franz knows that. He’s always known it. It’s why he never resented what you and Alex had. He never looked at the two of you with jealousy."

Arianne looked at her. "Did he tell you that?"

"He didn’t have to. I watched him watch you for years." Sam’s voice was soft now. "He never once looked at you and Alex the way people assumed he should. He just looked — " She paused, choosing the word. "Longing. Not to replace Alex. To be your person too. To stand beside you the way Alex did. Not the same. Just — also."

The booth was quiet.

Arianne didn’t respond. Her face was still, the way it always was when something had landed and she hadn’t yet decided what to do with it. But something behind her eyes had shifted. The frown was gone. In its place was something older and quieter. Recognition.

Like twins. Like Lily and Leo.

She thought about the twins in their shared bed, the whale and the Lion between them. She thought about Alex at seventeen, telling his father that Franz should be free. She thought about the way she and Alex used to sit in his office, working in silence, no words needed. She’d never had a word for what they were. Sam had just given her one.

Your person.

Audrey broke the silence gently. "Should we order more wine? This bottle’s done."

Sam held up her glass. "Absolutely."

The night went on. More wine came. More food. The music kept pulsing below them, and somewhere out on the dance floor Angelika Sinclair was still trying to escape a man whose hands didn’t know how to let go, and outside the club three unknown women were still waiting with their phones, and Mira was still watching the door.

But in the booth, the three women talked.

Arianne didn’t drink. She ate the cold fried food and listened to her friends and turned Sam’s words over in her mind.

Like twins.

Like Lily and Leo.

She’d spent so many years pushing back against an assumption she’d never asked for. She’d never stopped to ask what people had actually seen.