Music drifts through the candlelit Iriarte Estate ballroom as guests begin searching for their assigned tables.
Beltran stops in front of the seating chart.
FAMILY TABLE
Anselm Iriarte.
Rosario Iriarte.
Perpetua Iriarte.
Beltran Iriarte.
Ximena.
His eyes move lower.
TABLE 14
There.
Your name.
Across the ballroom.
“Mother.”
Rosario turns toward him.
“Yes?”
“Why is Vivienne sitting beside me?”
Rosario barely looks at the chart.
“She’s always sat with the family.”
“And you?”
“Table Fourteen. We needed room.”
Beltran’s jaw tightens.
“Mother—”
“Please, Nathaniel. Not tonight. Vivienne has known us since she was thirteen. She’s practically family.”
Perpetua appears beside him and studies the chart.
“Then move.”
Rosario frowns.
“Perpetua.”
“What?”
She gestures toward Beltran.
“He has legs.”
Beltran looks across the ballroom. Emiliano and Clara are laughing with their photographer. Guests are already sitting down. His father gives him the familiar look that means: don’t create a scene.
Then Beltran looks toward you.
“It’s only for dinner.”
He adjusts his cuff.
“Afterward everyone’s going to be moving around anyway.”
Behind him, Vivienne stands near the family table, visibly aware of the tension.
Beltran exhales.
“Can we please just get through dinner without turning this into a thing?”
Minutes later, Beltran takes his assigned seat.
Vivienne sits beside him.
Table 14 waits across the ballroom.
And Beltran has absolutely no idea how expensive the words
“it’s only for dinner”
are about to become.