Chapter 3

The guest room was too quiet. I had been lying in the dark for hours, the silk sheets tangled around my legs, replaying the moment at dinner when his fingers had brushed mine across the table. Accidental. Or deliberate. With him, I could never tell. I threw off the covers and crossed to the window. The grounds stretched out below, silver-blue under the moonlight. The pool gleamed like a dark mirror, and beyond it, the garden sprawled into shadow. Everyone else was asleep. The last of the champagne glasses had been cleared, the goodnights exchanged, the doors clicked shut. My mother in the east wing. The bridal party in their rooms. And somewhere in this labyrinth of a house, he was there. I pulled on a silk robe, pale cream, and tied it loosely at my waist. Beneath it, only a thin nightgown. I didn't bother with slippers. The marble floors were cold against my bare feet as I crept down the back stairs, past the darkened kitchen, and out through the French doors. The night air hit me like a revelation—cool, clean, carrying the faint smell of chlorine and wet grass. I walked past the pool, following the flagstone