Too Late For Regret, Mr. Sterling

The phone on the desk lit up, a slash of white in the dim study.

"Thinking of you. Same old place. The St. Regis, Room 2501."

The message was from "Aspen."

Ada Kowalski's hand froze, the dust cloth hovering inches from the polished mahogany. Her throat tightened. Aspen. The name was a phantom limb, a life that had never been hers.

Her fingers fumbled, the cloth slipping to the floor. She reached for the phone. It wasn't locked. Heathcliff Sterling never bothered with a password around her. She was part of the furniture. She tapped the screen. The contact name wasn't just Aspen.

It was "College Girl."

The two words were a brand on her skin. A mockery of her quiet existence, the degree she never earned, the small town the Sterlings never let her forget. Heat crawled up her neck, burning her cheeks.

Her hand trembled as she set the phone down. She tried to breathe, but the air felt thin, stolen. On her own phone, she opened an app she'd installed three years ago, a week after their wedding. A GPS tracker, buried in the chassis of Heathcliff's Mercedes. A secret she had prayed she would never need.

The red dot pulsed. Parked on East 55th Street.

Adjacent to The St. Regis.

She moved through the house on stiff limbs, each motion detached, mechanical. In their bedroom, she went to her jewelry box, pushing aside the cold diamonds Heathcliff had bought for occasions he barely remembered. Her fingers dug into the velvet lining at the back, closing around a thin piece of plastic. A master keycard for The St. Regis presidential suites. A contingency from a life he knew nothing about.

She stripped off her simple housedress, pulling on worn jeans and a plain gray T-shirt. A pale woman with hair pulled into a severe bun stared back from the mirror. She put on the large, black-framed glasses she always wore.

The drive was a smear of slick streets and distorted lights. Three years of marriage compressed into a single, sharp point: the burn of spices on her tongue from a meal she'd learned to cook for him, a meal she hated.

She parked and walked into the lobby, the frantic beat of her own blood loud in her ears. She didn't need to ask for the floor. 2501 was already burned into her mind.

The elevator ascended in silence, her own reflection a ghost in the gilded walls. The doors slid open onto plush carpet that deadened the sound of her footsteps. Outside the suite, she could hear it. A low murmur of voices, then a woman's laugh-light, carefree.

Bile rose in her throat.

She raised the keycard, her hand shaking so badly she had to steady it with the other. The lock clicked green.

She pushed the door open.

A man's suit jacket-Heathcliff's-was tossed over a chair. A pair of his Italian leather shoes were kicked into a corner. Beside them, a silk slip dress the color of champagne.

The living room was empty. The sound of running water came from the bathroom, along with the soft humming of a woman.

Ada stood in the center of the room. The ticking of a clock on the wall was a sharp, steady count against her skull. She waited.

The bathroom door swung open. A woman emerged, long dark hair pinned up, a silk robe cinched at her waist. She was dabbing perfume onto her wrists, her head down.

Then, she looked up.

Her eyes met Ada's. There was no shock. No panic. Just a flicker of amusement, a slow, cruel smile spreading across her lips.

The air punched out of Ada's lungs.

It was her sister, Georgiana Kowalski.

The bedroom door opened. Heathcliff walked out, dressed in suit trousers and a crisp white shirt, his tie loosened. He saw Ada, and his face-the face she had loved with a desperate, foolish hope-tightened not with guilt, but with sharp annoyance.

Across the room, two untouched glasses of wine sat on a coffee table. His jacket was draped neatly over the arm of a chair, as if he had been sitting there, maintaining a careful distance. He had come, but he had not crossed a line he'd drawn for himself.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice cold.

Ada couldn't draw a breath. No scream came. No tears. She just turned and walked out.

She didn't drive back to the manor. Her hands steered the car toward the one place that was supposed to be a sanctuary. Her mother's house.

She burst through the door. Leanne was in the living room, trimming the stems of white roses, her movements precise. She didn't look up.

"Mom," Ada choked out. "Heathcliff... Georgiana..."

Leanne set down her shears and sighed, a sound of weary patience. "Henry," she called. "Come in here."

Her stepfather appeared. He looked at Ada, his lips thinning in distaste.

"Ada, you need to be sensible," Henry said, his tone that of a man explaining a simple concept to a child. "The marriage arrangement was originally for Georgiana."

Leanne's voice was smooth, a layer of silk over steel. "Georgiana didn't want to give up her position as principal dancer. She let you take her place. You should be thanking her for three years as Mrs. Sterling."

Her marriage was a transaction. She was a substitute. A placeholder.

She looked at their faces. No sympathy. Only irritation at the disruption. She wasn't their daughter. She was a complication.

The tears stopped. A terrifying calm settled over her, cold and heavy.

She stood up and walked out of the house that had never been a home.

Outside, a cold rain had begun to fall. The drops hit her skin, but she felt nothing. She stood on the manicured lawn, looking up at the gray, unforgiving sky.

A sound tore from her throat-not a sob, but a raw, broken laugh.

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