LOGINJanet's Point of ViewI read the article three times.The first time my eyes moved too fast. Skipping over words. Catching only the large ones. Rowan. Tax. Government. Inquiry.The second time I slowed down and made myself read every sentence properly. Government agents from the tax revenue service had been seen at Rowan's company building that afternoon. Multiple sources had confirmed their presence. The situation was described as still unfolding. But an insider had spoken to the paper and said that Rowan had been unable to satisfactorily answer the questions put to him by the agents.The third time I read it I was looking for something specific. Something that would tell me this was exaggerated. That the paper had stretched a routine visit into a headline because routine visits don't sell papers.I didn't find it.I set the newspaper down on the cushion beside me.Was Rowan in trouble? Real trouble? The kind that didn't resolve itself quietly and move on? The kind that left marks?I
Janet's Point of ViewPeter was still holding the papers.I walked into the room fully and closed the door behind me. My legs felt strange. Like the floor had shifted slightly beneath them and hadn't fully settled back."Peter," I said again."Don't," he said.Not loud. Not sharp. Just firm. The single word of a person who has decided they are done being managed.I sat down on the chair across from him. My bag was still in my hand. I set it down slowly on the floor."Let me explain," I said."Were you still sleeping with him?" Peter asked. He looked at me directly. No warmth in the look. No anger either. Just the flat, clear eyes of someone who needed the truth and was going to wait for it however long that took. "After the divorce. Were you and Rowan still—""No," I said immediately. "No. Never. I would never." I pressed my hands together in my lap. "I found out after. The divorce was already done. Everything was already signed and finished and I found out after all of it."Peter loo
Janet's Point of ViewGrandma's sitting room always felt the same.Warm. Unhurried. Full of the kind of quiet that only very old, very loved spaces carry. The kind that has absorbed decades of conversation and laughter and difficult silences and come out the other side still comfortable.I sat across from her with my tea and let the familiarity of it settle around me like something I hadn't known I needed until I was already inside it.We had been talking about work. About the direction my career was taking. About Edward's company and the new project and what it might mean for my practice going forward. Grandma listened the way she always did. Fully. Without rushing toward her own point.Then she set her cup down."And Rowan?" she said.I looked up."He is fine," I said. "Work has been demanding. You know how he gets when there is a lot moving at once. He goes quiet and focuses."Grandma nodded slowly.Too slowly.The kind of nod that means I hear your words and I am not entirely conv
Flora's Point of ViewThe apartment was too quiet.That was the thing about silence when you were alone with your own thoughts. It didn't stay neutral. It filled up with everything you were trying not to think about. Every failed plan. Every door that had been closed in your face. Every version of the future you had built carefully in your head that kept collapsing before you could step inside it.I sat on my couch and stared at nothing.Rowan.I had tried everything. Every angle. Every approach. I had been patient. I had been present. I had made myself available in every way a woman could make herself available to a man. I had cooked in his kitchen. Sat in his living room. Positioned myself as the natural, obvious next step.And every single time, without fail, his mind went back to her.Janet.Always Janet.Even when she wasn't in the room she was in the room. Even when her name wasn't spoken it was sitting there between us like a wall I couldn't see but kept walking into.Rowan's m
Janet's Point of ViewGrandma's voice on the phone had been warm and certain."Come for lunch, my love. Just the two of us. I want to see your face properly."I had said yes immediately. How could I say no? After everything. After the hospital. After the results the doctor had laid on that table like a quiet warning. If she wanted lunch then lunch was what she would have.I dressed simply. Nothing that suggested effort. A light blouse. Comfortable trousers. The kind of outfit that said I am relaxed and happy to be here, which was partly true.I took a car to her estate.The gate opened. The driver pulled up the familiar driveway. I stepped out and the door was opened by Agatha before I even reached the steps."Miss Janet," Agatha said warmly. "Please come in."The house smelled the way it always did. Something between flowers and old wood and something baked earlier in the morning. It was a smell I had always associated with safety. With the rare feeling of being genuinely welcomed.I
Edward's Point of ViewI watched him walk away from our table and felt something settle in my chest like a decision being made.Rowan Thayer.I had heard the name before that evening. In financial circles. In conversations about power and acquisition and the kind of wealth that doesn't need to announce itself because every room it enters already knows. I had heard the name the way you hear weather reports about storms in other cities. Distant. Relevant to others. Not yet your problem.But he had walked to our table and stood over Janet with that jaw and those eyes and that particular brand of controlled fury that men like him wear like a second suit. And something in me had shifted quietly and permanently.I wanted to know everything about him.Not out of fear. I did not frighten easily. Out of something more strategic. More patient. The same instinct that had built my company from a single facility into what it was now. Know your landscape completely before you move through it.That
Flora’s Point of ViewI left the café without waiting for Claire or Tiffany to follow.The door swung shut behind me, cutting off the noise of their voices, but the silence outside didn’t make things better. My chest felt tight, like something inside me was slowly closing in.I walked without think
Janet’s Point of ViewPeter finally stabilized the day after the concert. The steady rhythm of the monitor beside his bed was the most reassuring sound I had heard in hours. I had barely left his side the entire night, watching his breathing, checking his pulse, forcing him to stay conscious whenev
Rowan’s Point of ViewThe moment Janet stepped into the ballroom, the air changed. It wasn’t loud or dramatic at first—just a subtle shift. Conversations slowed. A few heads turned near the entrance, then a few more. Within seconds, attention rippled quietly through the room like a wave. I followed
Janet’s Point of ViewFlora stood in the doorway as if she had just walked into something she wasn’t prepared to see.Her eyes moved from me to the fabrics spread across the desk, then back to my face. Surprise flickered there — but it didn’t last long. It hardened into something calculating.“Jane







