I sat up, dragging the sheet with me. My dress lay on the floor. His shirt hung over the chair. My underwear had ended up near the foot of the bed.
I thought of Katherine’s wrist in my hand that night on the terrace. Wet skin. Cold rain. The ledge biting into my ribs as I leaned over. I had spent days afterwards telling myself there had been confusion, that the storm had made everything slippery, that I had panicked. The truth had settled in after the funeral and never left.
I let go because I understood exactly what saving her would cost me. She had found the passport. She had seen the proposal notes. She knew about my reality. She would have told everyone. She would have taken back the life I had built. So I chose mine over hers. Some guilt still lived in me, quiet and heavy, but the end had justified the means. I had survived. That was the only rule that ever mattered.
Miss Astoria scratched louder.
“If you ruin that wood, he will call it evidence of emotional instability and send you to an asylum,” I muttered.
The scratching stopped. Then started again.
I found the robe he had left for me and wrapped it tightly around myself before I opened the door. Miss Astoria stood inthe hallway with the wounded dignity of someone abandoned for centuries instead of one night.
“You were fed very well,” I told her.
She meowed.
“You had a nice, comfortable bed to sleep on.”
Another meow.
“You were removed for reasons of basic decency.”
She pushed past me into the room, jumped onto the bed, sniffed the sheets, and gave me a cold blue stare.
“Don’t start with me now.”
She sneezed.
I picked up Vincent’s shirt and threw it at her. She dodged it easily and looked offended that I had even tried.
The apartment beyond the hallway was quiet but not empty. I heard movement in the kitchen. A cabinet closing. Water running. The low hiss of the kettle. Ordinary morning sounds that should not have belonged to a man who had brought my father back into my life because he wanted me next to him.
I dressed slowly in the pink trousers and soft sweater Sophia had packed. I brushed my hair and washed my face. The marks on my neck were still visible. I stared at them in the mirror and let my fingers hover over one before I dropped my hand. No. I would not cover them. I would not pretend last night had not happened. That’s what he’d expect from me.
When I walked into the living room, Vincent stood at the kitchen counter in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. He read something on his tablet while coffee brewed behind him. His hair was still damp from a shower, and his rimmed glasses were back on. He seemed to alternate between the glasses and contacts depending on his mood. I found him more attractive with his glasses on. He looked rested and controlled and infuriatingly beautiful in the grey morning light.
He looked up before I reached the counter. His gaze moved over me once, slow and greedy. It paused at my throat where the marks showed clearly. A faint smile touched his mouth.
“There is coffee,” he said.
“I do not want coffee.”
“You always do in the morning.”
“I want you to stop knowing ordinary things about me.”
“That seems unlikely. I’ve been watching you for a while.”
I walked to the counter and took the cup he had already placed there. Black with a little milk. Exactly how I drank it. I stared at it for half a second longer than I should have.
“You are unbearable. How do you know all this anyway? Your investigator must have been thorough.”
“Some of it was the investigator. Most of it was me paying attention because I wanted to know every detail about you. Even the small ones.” He took a sip of his own coffee while I shifted uncomfortably. His attention felt like both a gift and a cage.
Miss Astoria appeared from the hallway and went straight to him. She rubbed against his ankle.
I watched in horror as she meowed sweetly at him.
