"So, Aspen," Florian paused, and his voice dipped lower, "after being plunged headfirst into this whole new life, you must be feeling everything begin to shift. Tell us, what was your life before Margot O'Dell?"

There was something old-fashioned in his manner. He had the calculating precision of a man who knew the weight of his own words.

The world paused, waiting for my response, and my mouth went as dry as sawdust. I closed my eyes, steadied myself. I could envision Lucinda's voice, her finger, gnarled with age, beckoning me to tell my truth. I open my eyes and force a smile at Florian DeMarco.

Just tell them your truth.

"My mother, her parents had an unhappy marriage," I got out. "I think that's why she stayed a single mother. She was always a woman who radiated warmth and freedom. She hated the idea of being tied to someone who made you feel trapped. She always preached that love should free you. We didn't have much, we lived with the constraints of not having enough money. But I think her love for me set us both free."

The audience seemed to hold their breath, stay unmoving, as if a single sound could shatter my moment of vulnerability. Florian, leant forward, his face hitting the spotlight and shining hauntingly, as if painted in moonlight.

"And where is your mother tonight, Aspen?"

An aching in my chest tugged at my lips. "Oh, she died a few years back."

The audience gasped softly as my silence echoed. Margot gently squeezed my hand, still intertwined with hers. My brows raised and I stole a glance at her, but she stayed staring at Florian. She was callousness bottled into skin. But every so often empathy spilt out of her, and as time passed it was doing so more often.

"What a loss. I'm sure that every single heart in this room aches for your own." He scraped a hand through his hair, tearing at it.

I run my free hand across the arm of the couch, feel the dust collect under my touch. I waited for Florian to shift the direction of our interview, and eventually, he did.

"So, now that you're engaged to Margot, and you are living in the O'Dell mansion, tell us how that has been for you."

I scoffed. "You mean other than my crippling fear of being murdered? Oh, it's been fantastic."

The audience let out a startled laugh. Florian grinned at my joke, teeth cutting a crooked crescent. Margot's leg stopped bouncing and stiffened. She gave my hand a warning squeeze, and my heart skipped a beat in my chest.

"The O'Dell family are just as lovely as I thought that they would be. Even more so." I added after the laughs from the audience faded to a silence.

But there was no way to cut through the tension that I had just created. The topic that we were here to speak of had finally been addressed, and now we would have to meet it head on.

"I know you joke of it now, but this must be such a hard thing to go through, Aspen. Margot, how has the attempted murder of your fiancée affected you?"

"Immensely." Margot answered after a long pause.

Florian paused, waiting for Margot to reveal more, and I quietly sighed in frustration. It was unfathomable how Margot could have been famous for so long, yet not know what needed to be said when it needed to be said.

Margot looked at me, and I could see it swimming in her eyes, the things she would not say. But Margot was and had never been readable, so the green gave nothing away. She looks back to Florian soundlessly.

"Aspen would have been the second woman," Margot dropped my hand, returning her own to her lap, "the second woman that meant everything to me, that I would have lost."

I took a short intake of breath as I braced myself for her reluctant truth. But her silence stretched, and Margot did nothing but look down at her open hands in her lap.

"I remember when Eden first walked into the DeMarco show," Florian gently probed, "with her blue sundress and bold defiance. Just over a year ago. How do you feel being engaged to someone new, just a year after Eden?"

Eden and Margot had sat here before us. They'd had an interview right here where we sat, just over a year ago. Margot had never mentioned it.

"Eden and I's relationship," she trailed off, and I could feel the pain that Eden's name brought in every syllable of it spoken. "Our relationship wasn't perfect. Even before she passed away, I could feel it start to shift."

Florian nodded gently. I had begun to realize how good Margot was at dodging lies, while leaving her truths half spoken.

It's as if she reveled in the whispers, liked being the talk of America. A mystery untold.

Florian began to speak, but Margot continued, talking over him. "I'm not here to talk about my past, Florian. I love Aspen, she's my present and my future. What happened before is over."

I blushed, cheeks burning, glowing brighter than any fire, brighter even than the sunset that blazed outside. I knew I'd tease Margot about this later, her line straight out of a telenovela. The ice queen's moment of intense corniness.

Florian smiled, taking the hint.

"Tell us how you two met. It's the question everyone has wanted the answer to."

"She threw a coffee at my best friend."

The audience laughed, clapped. Margot blushed. My jaw fell slightly ajar. I had never seen Margot blush. But the flustered pink rose up her cheeks, and she laughed too.

"I bumped it!" The audience laughed even harder when Margot spoke through her fit of giggles.

I knew it was just a façade. Never had Margot gone strawberry pink, and God forbid she laughed. But here in this moment, through fits of laughter, I looked at her and she looked at me, and it felt real.

Florian clapped loudly and laughed with us, but the breath was shallow. He hesitates, cracking a small smile with sharp teeth, before continuing.

"But what happened before that!" Florian grinned. "What lead up to the coffee throwing, or might I say bumping?"

Silence settled over Margot and I, and we looked at each other. More so nervous than awkward. Telling the story of how we met, our engagement, when we had only just met around, what? Maybe a week ago? We were two strangers who were no longer strangers, but knew so little of each other.

"Margot had been a regular at the café I worked at for a very long time, but she would stay in her car, and so I never saw her."

Margot nodded. "A man who works for me would always get my coffee. I never went in."

"I first saw her from the car window, and I had never even heard the name Margot O'Dell, so there was no recognition there."

"And what did you think when you first saw Margot?" Florian questioned without missing a beat.

I thought about his question. What did I think? Past all the judgement and pointed glares?

"There was something about Margot when I first noticed her in that Bugatti. There was something about her face. Not just the fact that she was beautiful, but the way that she was beautiful." I thought deeply. "Something so timeless."

From my peripheral vision I could see Margot look over at me, but I continued to look straight across her to Florian. Sometimes, Margot's beauty embarrassed me. I felt like a cloth that fell off a clothesline; rag-like, tangled, ordinary. Talking about it made me hyperaware of it.

"And what café was this?" Florian questioned.

Margot opened her mouth to interject, but I spoke first. "The White Swan."

Florian's mouth fell open, and the crowd went eerily silent. Tension wrapped a cloak around the room.

"You mean, the cafe that Eden died at?"