Don’t hide.
It threaded through the quiet until it pressed against every part of me. I couldn’t sit here while Penny fifteen, almost sixteen played the perfect prop for his headlines. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve him.
My father was overseas. I’d checked before boarding the flight, skimming headlines in the airport and the moving crawl on the plane. He’d be charming investors while his daughter smiled for cameras.
That meant now.
I pulled on my coat. My suitcase and the oversized bunny still waited by the door like a chaperone I couldn’t shake, but I left them where they were. I needed my hands free.
The London air hit cold and sharp. I flagged a cab.
“Belgravia,” I told the driver, giving him the address I’d sworn I’d never return to. My father’s house. Penny’s cage.
The city blurred in muted greys and pale gold. Each turn pulled me closer to her and to him.
The mansion loomed, stone and shadow swallowing the street. I paid the driver and stepped out. The front gates weren’t locked. Of course they weren’t. He never feared anyone enough to close them.
Inside, the air was heavier, as if it carried every memory I’d shoved down and left to rot. Marble floors gleamed soullessly. The grand staircase arched overhead. The walls were stripped bare, empty frames where a family should have been.
It was the same. It was different. It was him.
I made myself walk. Thick rugs swallowed my footsteps. Then I heard it a soft voice from the living room.
I froze.
Penelope sat curled on the couch, legs tucked under, flipping through a magazine. Her hair caught the light, glossy and neat. Her clothes were pressed like she’d stepped out of one of his press releases.
My stomach lurched. The perfect daughter. His daughter.
She turned before I made a sound, like she felt me watching. Our eyes collided.
Her smile faltered. “Bella…” Quiet, careful, like she wasn’t sure if saying my name was allowed. She stood too quickly, smoothing her skirt with nervous fingers. “I… I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Neither did I,” I said, the weight of seven months crushing my ribs.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t take my place,” I cut in, sharper than I meant. “He made sure I didn’t have one.”
She winced, teeth catching her lip. For all the polish, she looked young then caught between the girl she’d been and the perfect doll he was moulding her into.
“Can we talk?” I asked. “Somewhere private.”
“Yeah. My room.”
We walked the long hallway. The portraits weren’t ours anymore. Nathan was gone. So was I. Fresh, glossy photographs had replaced them—my father, mother and Penelope, posed and perfect, like the old family never existed.
My chest caved, but I kept moving.
Penelope opened a door near the end. “This one’s mine.”
I didn’t step in. My gaze snagged on the door opposite. Nathan’s.
My hand moved before my brain caught up. The knob was cool; the door creaked. My heart dropped into my stomach.
The room was unrecognisable. The blue walls covered in band posters and ticket stubs were gone, replaced by a flat, suffocating grey. Shelves were bare. The bed replaced by sleek furniture pulled from a catalogue. Sterile. Lifeless.
Like Nathan never existed.
