Page 206 of The Lies We Play

He looks at the wine in his glass for a beat.

“Her name was Annaline.”

Halston says it carefully.

Not like a man offering a fact.

Like a man opening a box he has kept shut so long, the hinges may not hold.

Annaline.

The name sits between us.

I have known Halston for three years and some weeks. I know the sound of his footstep in our hallway. I know the way his mouth changes when Liv wins an argument, and he is proud of her, but refuses to reward the behavior. I know how he takes his coffee, how he folds shirts, how he kisses when he has been thinking too much, and how he sleeps better when one of us is touching him.

I have not known his mother’s name.

That hurts in a way I don't show him.

Not because he owed it to me before tonight.

Because he didn’t feel safe enough to give it.

I keep my hand on his knee and say nothing.

Halston looks at the wine in his glass.

“Annaline Wolfe married Bradford Saint Claire at twenty-three,” he says. “She was beautiful. She had a quick mind and a quicker laugh. She had a sense of humor that made people nervous if they were used to being obeyed.”

His mouth almost moves.

Not quite a smile.

“She gave Bradford a son a year after the wedding. She gave that son her hair color, her jaw, and eventually, her capacity to sit through a long dinner with people she didn't respect.”

“That sounds useful,” I say.

“It has saved me at least twice a year.”

His voice is dry. His eyes are not.

Halston drinks, then says, “Bradford had his first affair before the wedding.”

I feel my jaw set.

Halston sees it, of course. He sees everything.

“I know this because when I was twenty, I found a folder in Cornelius’s home study labeled B.S.C.—pre-marital. I read it without permission.”

“Good.”

His eyes move to mine.

I lift one shoulder. “If people don’t want their sons reading terrible files, they should stop creating terrible files.”

That gets me a small look.

Not humor exactly.