Page 35 of Iridescent
Why do you look like that?
Like you’ve just found something you thought was gone forever.
He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. In that fractured second, I realize I have never seen my husband truly speechless until now.
My chest tightens so hard it hurts to breathe.
“Xavi,” Isabel calls from across the hall.
We both turn.
Even through the crowd, I swear I see her breath catch. Her lips part, that smooth composure faltering as they stare at each other.
There’s history in that look. Years and unsaid things strung tight between them. An ache.
A chill slithers through me. I feel horribly out of place, like this is their moment and I’m a bystander who wandered into the wrong scene. My hand falls from Xavier’s arm. He doesn’t even notice. His entire world has narrowed to the woman in the red dress. His cousin.
My pulse pounds in my ears. I can’t tear my gaze from him, from that stricken expression I’ve never seen on his face in seven years together. It hits me like a cold, sharp blade to the gut—the understanding of what I’m witnessing.
Whatever Xavier is looking at, it’s not his goddamn cousin.
Chapter 7
The strange thing about being hit is that you don’t feel it right away. Pain always lags behind the impact.
I think I’m still in that second—that thin slice of time where the blow has already landed and I’m only beginning to understand it.
Around me, the Navarro family dining room gleams beneath a canopy of chandeliers. White linen, polished silver, crystal wine glasses catching the light like prisms. Conversation ripples around the enormous table, laughter rising and falling in waves. On the surface, it looks like another picture-perfect dinner. Underneath, I can smell the rot.
Xavier sits opposite me, his attention fixed on his plate—or anywhere that isn’t my face. He hasn’t looked at me once since Isabel slipped into the chair beside him.
I’d been heading for that seat, but one of his aunts hooked her arm through mine at the last second, laughing as she steered me away from him. Now Isabel is the one at his side instead, close enough that her shoulder brusheshis every time she leans in.
It hits like a punch to the ribs.
He lied.
And I was stupid enough to believe it.
I force myself to breathe, but I might as well be borrowing oxygen.
No. It can’t be.
There has to be an explanation. I can’t jump to conclusions. I trust my husband.
I have to.
I shift in my seat and drag my gaze away from him, letting it skim the length of the table instead.
Guinevere presides at the head, regal and untouchable, the undisputed queen of this little kingdom. Alejandro sits beside her, his broad hand draped over hers. To their right, Isabel laughs at something Lucien says, the sound bright and effortless.
She fits. As if she was always meant to.
I swallow and lift my wine, turning the glass slowly between my fingers, watching the deep red catch and fracture in the candlelight.
Sympathy, I correct myself for the second time tonight. That’s all this is.
Every few minutes, someone tries to pull me into conversation—a cousin asking about Greece, an aunt remarking on the unseasonable warmth—but their voices blur, distant and weightless. My attention keeps drifting back to the woman in red.
