Page 59 of So Close to You
Elliot sets his glass down on the table and looks back at his phone.
“Her career is over, too.”
She brings a hand to her mouth, horrified. She can already picture the scene the next day; the image of Nerissa walking through a crowd of flashing cameras triggers a genuine, visceral panic in her.
“This was Adrian Beckett’s doing,” she blurts out suddenly, unable to hold it in any longer. “Your dear friend blackmailed me a few days ago.”
Elliot frowns and crosses his arms.
“What are you saying?”
Seraphina takes a deep breath. She feels exhausted, as if she hasn’t slept properly in weeks.
“He found out about Chester. He wanted me to rig the merger audit and then resign. He threatened to send you the photos if I didn’t cooperate. I tried to distance myself from Nerissa to protect you and the children, but… I’m sure he has some hidden plan.”
The confession comes out broken and full of regret. Now she understands the monstrous irony of what has happened: she destroyed the woman she loved to save a life that, in the end, has been ruined anyway.
Elliot slumps onto the sofa, as if he’s suddenly aged ten years. Then he rubs his eyes with his palms.
“I don’t know who you are right now,” he says, almost to himself. “The woman I married wouldn’t have done this.”
Seraphina looks around the living room: the family photographs on the mantelpiece, the piano Ivy started learning last year, the blankets neatly folded on the sofa. Everything she has tried to keep intact surrounds her. And yet, none of it has been enough to extinguish what she feels for Nerissa.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m truly sorry.”
Elliot looks up, and for the first time, contempt is clearly visible in his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that. First thing tomorrow, the news will be on the front page of every newspaper in Manchester. You’ve destroyed the fifty-million-pound merger. You’ve destroyed our reputation, our family, our children’s future…”
His voice breaks completely.
“I hope that fucking surgeon was worth it.”
The verbal blow pierces her like a knife. Seraphina feels the urge to defend Nerissa, to stop him from reducing her to an insult, but the words die in her throat. Elliot has every right to hate her. He has just discovered the most brutal humiliation of his life. And, in the darkest depths of her soul, she knows she would fall in love with Nerissa all over again, even if the price were exactly this.
But the worst comes a few minutes later.
First, a brief flash cuts through the living room windows. Then another. And yet another. Elliot slowly turns his head toward the front yard.
Several cars pull up beside the gated community’s fence.
Then comes another flash, illuminating the trees in the garden like a blinding, artificial bolt of lightning. The press is already there. And Seraphina’s heart begins to pound so hard she can barely remain standing. She instinctively moves toward the large window and makes out silhouettes moving behind the security gates, cameras being raised, and lenses pointed directly at the house.
Another flash bursts through the darkness. And another. The hunt has begun.
Behind her, Elliot stands motionless beside the sofa, completely devastated, his shoulders slumped and his gaze unfocused.
Seraphina remains frozen in the center of the living room, caught between two worlds, finally realizing that there is absolutely nothing left of the universe she spent years trying to hold together with her bare hands. The weight of her decisions crushes her, and in that moment, as the flashes continue to illuminate the night, she can think only of Nerissa and the terrible price they will both pay for daring to love.
Chapter 21
The grayish light of dawn filters timidly through the low clouds as Seraphina Chapman crosses the entryway of her home with her jacket buttoned tightly and her keys clenched in her palm. The house remains shrouded in a thick silence, nothing like the usual calm of a family morning. It is the void left by an explosion, a dull echo still reverberating between the walls. Not a whisper from Oliver or Ivy comes from the upper floor. Elliot hasn’t left the living room since last night’s confrontation, either. Everything remains motionless, as if the very structure of the house were holding its breath in the face of disaster.
As she opens the front door, a brutal burst of camera flashes pierces her eyes with sudden violence, along with the agitated murmur of voices rising from behind the security gate.
“Seraphina! Mrs. Chapman! A statement, please!” shouts one of the reporters.
“Is the relationship with Dr. Ashcombe true?” insists another voice, higher-pitched and more anxious. “How long have you been seeing each other?”
