Chapter 6

Irina woke up the next morning to aggressive, unfiltered, deeply personal sunlight.

Someone had opened the curtains while she was unconscious. She made a mental note to address that with whoever was responsible because waking up feeling personally attacked by the sun was not the vibe she was going for in her new life.

She lay there blinking at the ceiling, running her new morning inventory.

Where am I.

McKinney Mansion.

Why.

Contract marriage.

How much money.

Ten million dollars.

Is Anna still—

 Yes.

She exhaled and reached for her phone. Eight forty-seven. Three missed calls from Zachary

and a text: hope ur doing ok babe, call me when u can. She stared at it, set the phone face-down, and got up. The shower situation was, frankly, unnecessary.

Rainfall showerhead, heated floors, and a mirror that was also a TV, which she accidentally turned on at full volume while reaching for her towel and nearly gave herself a second accident. She fumbled with the remote for a solid minute, standing there dripping and cursing quietly in Russian — a habit inherited from her late mother that only surfaced under genuine duress.

She dressed simply. Jeans, a knit top, her own clothes. It felt like a small act of resistance in a house this grand and she was absolutely taking it.

The dining room that seated twenty was, this morning, hosting three.

Margaret McKinney sat at the head of the table in a silk blouse and pearls. At eight in the morning. Because of course she did. Sasha was across from her, slouched with the energy of someone doing community service, prodding at a bowl of fruit she clearly had no intention of eating. A third place had been set.

Irina understood immediately that it was for her. She walked in. Margaret looked up.

"Good morning," Margaret said. Somehow the most neutral two words in the English language sounded like the opening statement of a deposition.

"Morning," Irina replied, taking her seat.

Sasha glanced up, assessed her in approximately one second, and looked back down. Said nothing. Which was, honestly, an improvement.

A woman in her forties appeared immediately — Mrs. Paulson, she introduced herself — and asked what Irina would like for breakfast with the kind of professional warmth that made you feel welcome and observed simultaneously.

"Toast and eggs, please. Thank you."

Mrs. Paulson disappeared. The silence at the table had furniture in it.

Margaret poured herself more tea with the precision of a woman who had never done anything carelessly in her life. "Did you sleep well?"

 "I did, thank you."

"Good. The mansion can be an adjustment. Some people find the size unsettling at first." Some people. Not you. Some people. As in, people who didn't belong here.

She caught it. Margaret intended her to catch it. Irina smiled pleasantly and said nothing. Sasha snorted suddenly at something on her phone.

"What?" Margaret asked.

Sasha turned the screen around. A gossip blog. A photo from the beach ceremony. The headline read: MCKINNEY HEIR MARRIES MYSTERY WOMAN IN SURPRISE BEACH CEREMONY — WHO IS SHE?

Irina kept her face completely still.

"The press," Margaret said, with a wave that was a little too practiced to be genuine. "They'll say whatever gets clicks."

"She looks confused in this picture," Sasha remarked, studying the photo with the focus of a forensic analyst. "Like she doesn't know where she is."

"I'd just gotten out of a hospital bed two days before," Irina said pleasantly. "I think confused was warranted."

Sasha looked up. Their eyes met. Neither blinked.

Then Sasha looked back at her phone. Point to Irina, or a draw. She'd take either.

Mrs. Paulson returned with the toast and eggs and Irina focused on her plate and concluded that surviving breakfast in this house was going to require a level of psychological endurance she hadn't previously needed to develop.

Neo came home at half past six.

She was in the library — the one room that felt like somewhere a person could actually breathe — cross-legged in a leather armchair with a book she was mostly pretending to read when he appeared in the doorway, still in his suit, jacket over his arm.

He looked at her in the chair. Then at the book. Something in his expression shifted, just a fraction.

"You found it," he said.

"You said your father cared about it. Felt worth investigating."

 He came in and dropped into the armchair across from her, loosening his tie. He looked tired in the way that had nothing to do with sleep — the kind that came from wearing a version of yourself for too many hours.

"How was the board?" she asked.

"Half glad I'm in position. Half looking for reasons to be difficult."

"And did they find any?"

"Not today." The faintest suggestion of satisfaction crossed his face. "Tomorrow's a different story though. I need you there."

She looked at him. "At the board meeting."

"Yes."

"Neo, I'm a recreational dance instructor."

"I know what you are, Irina. I'm not asking you to run the meeting. I just need my wife present." He held her gaze. "Ten o'clock. I'll have something sent to the room for you to wear."

She raised an eyebrow. "Appropriate?" "Suitable."

"Same thing."

"Irina."

She clicked her tongue and looked back at her book. He stayed in the armchair across from her, the library settling into a quiet that was, against all reasonable expectation, not uncomfortable.

When Mrs. Paulson called them for dinner, they both stood and walked out together and Irina thought that whatever this was, it was going to be considerably more complicated than ten million dollars could account for.

She kept that to herself.