Carissa’s smile thinned. “No,” she said softly. “I’m humiliating you. That’s why you can feel it.”
Nikki found her voice next. “This is not what it looks like.”
Carissa looked at her sister in the emerald dress and felt a calm so complete it almost felt holy.
“Then what does it look like, Nikki?” she asked. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re pretending to be me in public after sleeping with my husband in private.”
That hit harder than any shout could have.
There was an audible reaction then—a collective shift, a breath, a murmur, the strange little current of excitement that runs through groups of adults the moment a social gathering turns into a crime scene without blood.
Damen’s face flamed. “Jesus Christ.”
“No,” Carissa said. “This was all you.”
A woman with silver bracelets lifted one hand hesitantly. “I’m sorry, I genuinely don’t understand. Damen, you’ve shown pictures of Nikki for years.”
Carissa nodded. “Yes. Because that was easier than explaining he married the other sister.”
The sentence traveled.
She saw it happen.
The other sister.
Maybe she should not have said it. Maybe it was too cruel. But cruelty had already happened. This was only filing.