LOGINHe leans forward, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial, deeply unsettling whisper as he stares directly into my green contact lenses. "In fact... you don't have to be a maid at all, Candy. I can make all of this manual labor disappear with a single phone call. If you can just agree to be my pri
"Look, Naomi, if Dennise catches you in here, she’s going to—" The distinct, heavy sound of the deadbolt locking echoes through the quiet kitchen. My entire body goes completely rigid. My instincts scream at me, a cold shock of adrenaline instantly shooting straight to my fingertips. That isn't th
I smooth down the front of my oversized, scratchy maid uniform, my fingers tracing the small bruise on my chest from where Caroline's finger violently ripped my dress open at the cemetery yesterday. My skin still feels raw from the humiliation, my eyes are burning from crying all night over Owen, a
The striking, facial structure. Sydney is an absolute, undeniable replica of the woman in the vintage photograph—Tobias’s mother. The almost psychotic protectiveness Tobias has shown toward Sydney from the very first moment he met her. The massive financial safety nets he threw under her, the fact
Before I can even open my mouth to apologize for breaking into his house, Tobias speaks. His voice is incredibly quiet, completely devoid of its usual sharp authority, yet it carries a heavy, haunting weight that pins me right to the carpet. "For years..." he murmurs, his finger continuing its slow
I stand frozen on the gravel path, the engine of Sydney’s departing car roaring in my ears. I watch the taillights of her vehicle bounce over the cemetery threshold, disappearing completely from sight, and with every inch of distance she puts between us, my heart shatters into a million jagged, irre
The water is the only thing that doesn’t feel like it’s judging me right now. After Nicholas left, I couldn’t stand the silence of the house, so I headed straight for the pool. I need the physical burn of the laps to drown out the mental noise of everything he said. I dive in, the cold shock of the
I sit in the back of the car, the scent of raw egg and sulfur filling the cramped space until I feel like I might actually gag. I need to get clean, and I need to be somewhere that feels like mine—or at least, somewhere that doesn't smell like a holding cell. "Take me to the studio," I tell the dri
The sun is warm on my skin, and for a fleeting second, I am actually, genuinely happy. I’m standing in the middle of a flowery field—the kind you see in perfume commercials where everything is soft focus and smells like jasmine. The wind is blowing against my face, and I feel peaceful. Free. Like
"So you saw her that day?" The detective’s voice is a low, gravelly drone that usually makes me want to yawn, but today? Today, it’s music to my ears. I’m sitting in the Newton’s private study, the air smelling of aged mahogany and the faint, lingering scent of Grandmother’s favorite lavender sache







