Chapter 5 Burning Down the Gala

The Pierre ballroom was exactly as it always was — chandeliers like frozen waterfalls, men in Brioni suits, women draped in things that cost more than most people earn in a year. The Ferretti Foundation annual charity gala: a performance of generosity staged for the people who needed to be reminded what power looks like when it dresses up.

I stood at Damiano's side and watched the room watch him.

Then the crowd shifted and Serena Voss walked in.

I recognised her from photographs, though photographs had not done justice to the sheer force of her. Gold-red hair, a crimson gown that knew exactly what it was doing, a smile that arrived five seconds before the rest of her. She moved through the room as though the room had been built to receive her — and, in some ways, I suppose it had been.

She came straight to us.

"Damiano." She kissed both his cheeks with the ease of old habit. Then she turned to me. "You must be Norma. I've heard so much." Her eyes moved over me with the efficiency of a woman assessing a rival and finding the contest already concluded. "You look tired, sweetheart. Damiano, I remember you saying you couldn't stand women who looked — what was the word — listless? How funny."

I said nothing. Damiano said nothing.

Serena tilted her head. "Tell me — am I standing close enough to you now? Are you satisfied? I earned this the hard way, Damiano. I went away, I built something real. Am I good enough now?"

And then Luca pulled free of my hand.

"Godmother!" He almost ran to her — my composed, cold thirteen-year-old, transformed in an instant. "You were gone for so long. Come home with us tonight. Please."

"Oh, sweetheart." Serena touched his face. "I can't do that. Your mum might not like it."

"She doesn't get to decide." Luca's voice had the blithe cruelty of a child who has learned what power sounds like. "Besides, my painting won an award last month. I called it Encounter — I painted it from the photos of you and Dad. I always thought you should have been my mum. It would have been better."

The sentence landed in the room and stayed there.

I let go of Damiano's arm.

I heard the breath I took — it was steadier than I expected. Then I turned and slapped my husband across the face, open-palmed, hard enough for the sound to carry.

The room went silent.

"Norma—" Serena's voice.

"You proposed to me," I said. My voice was quiet but the ballroom was quieter. "In front of both our families, with flowers and a ring and words you chose carefully. I gave you a chance to go after her — I told you, I would let you go — and you chose to stay. So don't stand there and let your son announce to a room full of people that the wrong woman married you."

I turned to Luca. He had stepped behind Serena, his expression unreadable.

"I almost died having you," I said. "Three days in intensive care. Your father was in Shanghai. I held you alone for the first week of your life, and I have been the person who stays — every fever, every nightmare, every failed audition and failed test and 2 a.m. panic — I have been there. Every time. And you painted her, and called it Encounter, and said she should have been your mother." I stopped. "I think you should know that words like that don't vanish. They stay."

My vision went white at the edges. I grabbed Damiano's lapel to keep my balance, and then my legs stopped working properly and warm blood was running down my upper lip and onto the white fabric of his shirt.

"Norma." His hands were on my arms instantly. "Norma, what — look at me—"

"I told you," I said. My voice sounded strange and far away. "I told you I was sick. I told you — more than once. You said I was performing."

I pressed the envelope into his hand — the one with the gold-red hair and the ring — and then the floor came up very fast.