“Will there be cake?” Lucas asked, always practical.
“Almost certainly,” I said. “But we are not going for the cake.”
Sophia looked at me with those sharp green eyes, so much like her father’s.
“Are we going to meet someone important?” she asked.
Smart girl.
“Yes,” I said. “We are going to meet some people who used to know Mommy a long time ago.”
“Will they be nice?” Ethan asked.
“Probably not,” I said honestly. “But that does not matter. We are not going to be nice either.”
The children giggled at that, thinking it was a joke.
It was not.
I dressed carefully, taking my time.
The black silk dress fit like it had been painted on, showing exactly how much I had changed in five years.
I was no longer soft. I was angular, sharp, honed by sleepless nights and ruthless decisions.
My hair was pulled back in a severe bun. My makeup was minimal but precise.
I wore the diamond earrings I had bought myself after my first billion-dollar exit.
And I carried a slim black portfolio, embossed with the logo of my company.
Inside was the initial public offering filing. Proof, in black and white, of everything I had built.
We arrived at the Plaza Hotel at exactly two o’clock.
The wedding was scheduled to begin at two-thirty.
I wanted to be early.
I wanted them to see me coming.
The lobby was already filled with guests, the cream of New York society.
Women in pastel dresses and hats that cost more than rent.
Men in morning suits, checking their phones, discussing mergers between sips of champagne.
This was Julian’s world. This had been my world, briefly, when I was too naive to understand it.
Now I saw it clearly. Shallow. Performative. Fragile.
I took my children’s hands and walked across the marble floor.
Every step echoed.
Every head turned.
They saw the children first. Four identical faces, like a perfectly matched set.
Then they saw me.
I watched recognition ripple through the crowd like a stone thrown into still water.
Whispers started immediately.
“Is that Nora Vance?”
“The tech investor?”
“What is she doing here?”
“Are those her children?”
“Do they look like…”
I smiled serenely and kept walking.
The grand ballroom was decorated like something out of a fairy tale.
White roses everywhere. Crystal chandeliers. A string quartet playing softly.
At the front, near the altar, I saw him.
Julian Sterling.
He looked the same. Handsome in that effortless, expensive way. His tuxedo fit perfectly. His hair was styled just so.
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