“What are you spacing out for this early in the morning?” Helen nudged Zac with her elbow.
Zac snapped out of his thoughts. “Oh, nothing.”
Evelyn raised her hand and lightly knocked on Haley’s door. When she didn’t hear a response, she turned the handle and pushed it open.
Inside, Haley lay on her side, facing away, still fast asleep.
Evelyn didn’t wake her. She quietly closed the door and went back downstairs to the dining room. “Let’s start eating. Haley is still sleeping, no need to wait for her.”
She turned to the housekeeper and instructed, “Prepare some breakfast for her to eat when she wakes up.”
“Understood.” The housekeeper nodded.
*
Upstairs, in her room, Haley was lost in a nightmare—one that took her back to when she was sixteen.
On her sixteenth birthday, Evelyn had gifted her a private villa on Fifth Avenue, conveniently close to the art museum. After school, she often went there to paint.
That night, she had run out of paint and made a late tr
