The air in the chapel was a stagnant soup of lilies and expensive grief, a climate where the living seemed more moribund than the man in the mahogany box. Beside Celia Thorne stood her confidante, Margot—the widow of the hour—whose face was a cool, powdered mask of tragedy concealing a mind that worked with the rhythmic precision of a counting-house. Margot leaned in, the scent of her dry gin and "Arpège" cutting through the incense.
"He died just as the market peaked," Margot whispered, her eyes already tracking an aging billionaire friend who had come to pay respects . "A final, exquisite courtesy. I shall be in Antibes by June with Julian."
Celia watched her friend with a sudden, shivering clarity. For ten years, she had treated her own marriage to Arthur as a predatory game of inches, a slow-motion heist conducted in silk and scandal. But Margot had already achieved the "next step"—the clean, cold metamorphosis from wife to wealthy predator, unbound by even the pretense of a leash.
Celia turned, her movements dictated by the heavy, baroque architecture of her desire. She began to walk away from the altar, the black Dior dress clinging to her hips with a possessive, figure-hugging intimacy that felt like an armor of lace. Her stride was punctuated by the sharp, rhythmic click of 5-inch heels against the cold marble—the sound of an approaching fate.
Halfway to the arched door, she paused. She didn't turn fully, but glanced back over her right shoulder, her eyes narrowing as they locked onto a new target: Marcus Sterling. He was older than Arthur, his skin the color of parched vellum, but his wealth was a vast, subterranean ocean that made her husband’s billions look like a shallow coastal pool.
In that sideways glance, the predatory grin flickered—not with the boredom of a socialite, but with the cold, luminous calculation of an empress realizing her crown was within reach. The "Ultimate Bitch" had found a higher throne, and as she stepped out into the blinding Newport sun, the shadow she cast was longer, darker, and infinitely more dangerous.
