First message
The evening at yet another charity gala was boring. Jade smiled politely, greeted familiar faces, posed for photographs, and repeated the same conversations she had already had a hundred times before.
Louis walked a few steps ahead of her. She hurried after him, struggling to keep up.
“Louis! Wait! We have to take photos. The journalists are already here!” she called, almost pleading.
Louis stopped.
“Journalists…” he said quietly.
His jaw tightened.
Then his eyes settled on a woman standing nearby.
Jade knew that look.
He had made a decision.
The journalists were getting closer, and everything that followed seemed to happen in slow motion beneath the camera flashes.
Louis walked straight toward the stranger.
Fast. Deliberate. Destructive.
Jade reached for his sleeve, trying to stop him.
He gently cupped the woman’s face…
…and kissed her.
Jade covered her mouth with her hand.
The flashes became one endless white light.
By the time Louis let go and walked away, every journalist in the room had already seen enough.
Jade remained standing in the middle of the gallery, completely frozen, unable to understand what had just happened.