“Royal Meridian?”
“Yes.”
She started crying.
That almost made me cry too.
Not because of Mara.
Because suddenly I was remembering every small room I had rehearsed in, every rejection email, every train ride home after an audition where no one looked up when I finished.
The contract had felt real when I signed it.
But watching my aunt understand what it meant made it real in another way.
Daniel returned twenty minutes later without Mara.
He found me near the hallway outside the ballroom.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“With her sister.”
I nodded.
He leaned against the wall.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“I watched her do it.”
I had no easy answer for that.
He looked at the floor.
“I thought she was just being competitive.
She gets insecure around people she thinks are talented.”
“That isn’t an excuse.”
“I know.”
We stood in silence.
Then he laughed weakly.
“You really work at the Royal Meridian.”
“I really do.”
“Lead soprano.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“After the announcement.”
“You could have trusted me.”
I looked at him.
“Tonight you stood beside someone who was trying to humiliate me and didn’t speak until she had pushed it too far.”
He flinched.
I did not say it to punish him.
I said it because it was true.
“I love you,” I continued.
“But trust isn’t only about keeping secrets.
Sometimes it’s about knowing someone will stand beside you when there’s nothing in it for them.”
He nodded slowly.
“That’s fair.”
We never had a dramatic reconciliation that night.
Real families rarely do.
We hugged.
He apologized again.
Then he went back to his wedding reception and tried to repair what remained of the evening.
Mara eventually returned.
Her makeup had been touched up.
Her smile had not.
She avoided me for the rest of the reception.
So did most of her bridesmaids, except Sophie, who quietly apologized before leaving.
The video never appeared online.
Daniel made sure of that.
Weeks later, the Royal Meridian officially announced its season.
