My Fiancé Forced Me to Apologize to His Mistress

Two days later, my phone wouldn't stop buzzing.

It started at breakfast. A text from Celeste Baird, a friend since kindergarten.

*Is this really you?*

Under it was a screenshot. My name. My profile picture. A post calling Valery Morales "a cheap knockoff who should crawl back to whatever gutter she came from."

I had never written that. I had never written one word about her.

More messages came. Then more.

*Priya Nolan sent this around last night. Is it true?*

*Adaline, call me. Everyone's talking.*

I didn't know anyone named Priya Nolan. I sent everyone the same reply. *It isn't mine.*

Nobody wrote back.

At four, my father's assistant called. "Mr. Shaw wants you home. Now."

---

Rain streaked the tall windows of the study. The room smelled like cedar and old books, the way it always had. My father sat behind his desk. Papers were fanned out in front of him like a hand of cards.

Callahan stood by the window. He didn't turn around when I came in.

"Sit," my father said.

"I'd rather stand."

He slid the pages toward me. Screenshots. Timestamps, all after midnight, Oxford time. A printout of IP logs traced to a server three streets from my old flat. And there was more. Message after message, written in my voice. My little habits. The way I never use exclamation points. The way I sign off with just an *A.*

Someone had studied me.

My father pressed a key on his laptop. A recording played.

"I'll ruin her," my own voice said. "She'll never show her face in this city again."

The words had seams. Tiny gaps, like someone had cut them out of other sentences and sewn them together.

"That isn't me," I said.

"It's your voice," my father said.

"It's my voice cut into pieces."

Callahan finally turned. "It came to my building. No name. No return address. Someone wanted me to know who you really are."

"Someone wanted you to believe it."

"Valery cried for three hours."

"Valery cries very well."

His jaw went tight. Then he went silent. I knew that silence. Once, I would have touched his arm and said his name softly. Once, that would have been enough.

I kept my hands at my sides.

"Can you prove you didn't write these?" my father asked.

"How do I prove I didn't do something?"

"Then the evidence stands."

He took a small brass key from his vest pocket. He unlocked the bottom drawer. I heard it slide open, and my stomach dropped before I even saw what was inside.

The riding crop. Black leather, worn pale at the handle.

"Your grandfather used this on me," he said. "Forty lashes for a lie. Ninety-nine for dishonoring the name."

"Dad."

"Turn around, Adaline."

I looked at Callahan. He had moved to the doorway. His arms were crossed.

"Are you going to stay for this?" I asked.

"Somebody should make sure you learn."

I turned around. I put my hands flat on the cold edge of the bookshelf.

The first one didn't hurt right away. It was just sound. A sharp crack, like a branch snapping. Then the heat came, a bright line across my shoulders.

I counted in my head. Shaws don't scream. My father taught me that before he taught me to ride a bike.

By ten, my back was on fire. By twenty, I couldn't feel the line between one lash and the next. I pressed my thumb into my palm. Harder. Harder. I focused on small things. The grandfather clock ticking. Rain on the glass. Callahan's polished black shoes at the edge of my vision, not moving. Not even shifting his weight.

Thirty. Thirty-one.

My blouse was white silk. I had picked it this morning because it looked calm. Clean. Like someone with nothing to hide.

Forty-seven.

Something warm slid down my spine. I looked down. A red drop hit the Persian rug. Then another. The silk clung wet to my skin.

Behind me, the crop stopped in the air. Just for half a second. I heard my father breathe.

Then it came down again.

I didn't make a sound. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, the same taste as the night Valery slapped me. My knees shook. I locked them.

Ninety-nine.

The crop hit the desk with a soft thud. Nobody spoke.

"It's done," my father said. His voice was quieter than I'd ever heard it.

I straightened up slowly. Every inch of my back screamed. I turned and walked toward the door.

Callahan didn't move out of the way. I had to pass close enough to smell him. Cedar and smoke. And under it, faint and sweet, vanilla and jasmine.

My perfume. On his collar.

"Maybe now you'll apologize to her," he said.

I didn't look at him. I just kept walking.

---

My childhood bedroom hadn't changed. Same blue curtains. Same window seat. My cello stood in the corner, where it had waited for five years.

I locked the door. I didn't turn on the light.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the cello between my knees. My back burned where the silk pulled at it. I picked up the bow.

My hand shook so badly the bow skipped across the strings. It made an ugly, scraping cry. I tried again. Worse.

I looked down at my palm. Eight little crescents, dark red, pressed deep into my skin.

I laid the bow across my lap and sat very still in the dark.

After my mother died, the cello was the only thing that ever understood me.

Tonight, it wouldn't even answer.