Chapter 21: Mrs. Keane Arrives

Willa's POV

The Slingsby ballroom had three chandeliers, two hundred guests and a string quartet playing the wrong music.

I knew every face in it.

In my last life, I had stood in this same room at this same party, six months after being called a cheat.

I had worn gray and kept my eyes down, and half the women there had turned their backs.

This time I came through the double doors in red silk.

Rory was beside me in a black suit that fit him properly, with his hand on the small of my back.

The quartet missed a bar.

Two hundred heads turned, and the whispering began at the door and ran to the stage.

"That's the Keane video," a woman said.

"That's her. The widow."

"She isn't a widow, look at him."

"Look at him," said another voice, with real feeling, and I felt Rory's mouth twitch beside my ear.

"They like you," I murmured.

"They like the suit."

A waiter offered us champagne.

I took a glass and did not drink.

Bennett stood at the head of the room beside a tall white-haired man who was his father.

In my last life that old man had called me a cheat to my face.

Now he looked at the bruise on my cheek, which I had not covered, and his smile faltered.

Bennett came across the floor at once.

"Willa," he said. "You came."

"I was invited."

"I didn't think you would. Not after Miami."

He lowered his voice.

"I'm sorry about all that. Desmond used me. I was a fool."

"You took five hundred thousand dollars."

"A finder's fee."

"Say it louder."

His smile stayed fixed.

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