Chapter 3

Two days. That was all it took for Vanessa to colonize my home.

She arrived with four suitcases and an air of casual ownership I had never managed in four years. The maids flocked to her. They laughed at her jokes, complimented her clothes, rushed to prepare her meals. My own requests had always been met with polite indifference.

I watched from the periphery of my own life.

Vanessa took her coffee in the sunroom every morning, the same sunroom where I had planned to read in peace. She replaced my peonies with white lilies because peonies were "provincial." She suggested new dinner menus, and the chef obeyed without consulting me. She played Cassian's old piano in the evenings.

Cassian noticed none of it. He left early and returned late. When he was home, he deferred to her comfort. Two nights ago, he gave her my seat at the dinner table. I ate in silence at the far end.

The entire household understood what Cassian refused to say aloud: Vanessa had returned, and Clara had become surplus to requirements.

Four more days. Four more days, and my visa would be active. Four more days, and I would disappear into a new country, a new identity, where no one knew the name Cassian Kingsley.

But Vanessa did not give me four days.

It happened on a Wednesday afternoon. I was in my bedroom sorting through my belongings, deciding what to take and what to leave. The divorce papers were signed, tucked beneath my sweaters. My passport sat in my nightstand drawer.

I was holding my mother's necklace when the door opened without a knock.

Vanessa stood in the doorway in cream silk, her dark hair cascading over one shoulder. Her lips curved into a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"There you are. I've been wanting to see this room. Cassian mentioned you decorated it yourself. How quaint."

"Get out. This is my private space."

Her gaze dropped to my hand. "What do you have there?"

"Nothing that concerns you."

"Oh, but I think it does." She stepped forward and closed her fingers around my wrist, prying my hand open. The pearls spilled into view.

"Pretty. Is this real?"

"It was my mother's. Give it back."

Vanessa lifted the necklace toward the light. "I've always loved vintage jewelry. There's something romantic about wearing a piece with history."

"Give it back."

"Why? Everything you own was bought with Cassian's money. And what belongs to Cassian belongs to me. We've known each other since childhood. Surely you understand."

"That necklace has nothing to do with Cassian. It was my mother's. She wore it on her wedding day. I was holding it when she took her last breath."

"How sentimental." Vanessa draped the pearls around her own throat. "But I think it suits me better, don't you? Pearls need a certain presence."

I lunged.

I am not a violent woman. In four years of marriage, I had never raised my voice, let alone my hand. But this necklace was the last thread connecting me to my mother. The last thing that was irrevocably mine.

My fingers closed around the pearls and pulled. Vanessa's hand shot up to stop me. We struggled, the strand stretched between us.

"Let go," I hissed. "This isn't yours."

"Everything in this house is mine. Including your husband. Do you think I don't know why you're still here? You're nothing but a placeholder. A warm body to fill the space until I came back. Cassian told me how he never loved you—"

The necklace snapped.

Pearls scattered across the hardwood floor, rolling under the bed, behind the dresser, into corners I would never reach. My mother's pearls. The last thing she ever gave me. Gone.

I stared at the empty strand.

Then I slapped her.

The crack echoed through the room. A red mark bloomed across Vanessa's perfect skin.

She turned back to me, eyes burning. "You dared to hit me?"

She spun toward the open door, where two maids had gathered Marie and Elena. Women I had employed for three years.

"Hold her down."

The maids hesitated.

"Did you hear me? Hold her down, or I will ensure Cassian fires both of you before sunset. Do you think he'll choose you over me?"

I straightened my spine. "I am the lady of this house. Touch me, and you will regret it."

Vanessa laughed. Not a cruel laugh, genuine amusement. "The lady of the house. Does Cassian love you? Has he ever loved you? Does he even look at you?"

I opened my mouth. No sound came.

"Hold. Her. Down."

They did.

Marie gripped my arms. Elena locked my wrists behind my back. I thrashed and tried to scream, but Vanessa was already rolling up her sleeves.

The first slap sent my head snapping left.

"One."

The second blurred my vision.

"Two."

By the tenth, I had stopped counting. By the twentieth, I had stopped struggling. By the thirtieth, my face was no longer my face, swollen, split, streaming blood onto the floor where my mother's pearls lay scattered.

"Forty-eight."

My knees buckled. The maids held me upright.

"Forty-nine."

"Fifty."

The fiftieth slap landed like a thunderclap. I heard a distant whimper and realized it was mine.

Then I heard nothing.

When I came back to myself, I was on the floor. A pearl lay inches from my nose, smeared with blood.

Vanessa's heels clicked closer. Her shadow fell over me. Then something warm and wet landed on my face. Spit. I didn't have the strength to wipe it away.

"Remember this the next time you think you're his wife."

The door opened. Cassian's voice cut through: "What the hell is going on?"

Hands lifted me. Voices shouted. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance.

The hospital room was white and quiet.

I surfaced slowly. Machines beeped. My face throbbed. When I tried to open my eyes, only one obeyed. The other was swollen shut.

Cassian stood by the window, his back to me. The line of his shoulders was tense not with worry, but irritation. As if my hospitalization were an inconvenience.

He turned. "You're awake." His voice was flat.

I didn't answer.

"The doctor says there's no permanent damage. A mild concussion. Some bruising. You'll heal in a week or two."

He spoke as if I'd tripped on the stairs.

"Vanessa is sorry. She feels terrible. It won't happen again."

I stared at him.

"I've grounded her. Frozen her credit cards. She won't be going to the shopping mall for a whole day."

My one open eye searched his face for the joke. There was none. He was serious.

"Is that all? That's all the punishment you gave her?"

Cassian's jaw tightened. "I brought her here to apologize in person. She's waiting outside."

Before I could protest, he opened the door.

Vanessa entered with downcast eyes, hands clasped, radiating remorse like a Renaissance Magdalene.

"Clara." She approached with small, hesitant steps. "I am so, so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I was just so angry. Please forgive me. I'll never do something like that again. I swear it."

I said nothing. The silence stretched.

Then she scurried behind Cassian, peeking over his shoulder. "Cassian, she's looking at me with such a scary face. I think she wants revenge. I'm scared."

His arm came around her immediately. He stroked her back a gesture of comfort I hadn't received once in four years of marriage.

"Clara." His voice hardened. "Vanessa has apologized. There's no need to be angry anymore. I had your mother's necklace fixed."

He placed the restrung pearls on the bedside table.

"Everything is fine now. Let's put this behind us."

I looked at the necklace. At my husband. At the woman cowering behind him.

"Get out."

Cassian blinked. "Clara—"

"Get out!" The scream tore from my throat. "Both of you! Get out! I loathe you! I loathe the sight of you! GET OUT!"

Vanessa flinched. Cassian stared at me as if seeing me for the first time.

I kept screaming until they left. I kept screaming until my raw throat produced no more sound. Then I collapsed against the pillows, my body wracked with silent sobs.

The necklace sat on the bedside table. I did not touch it.

Four days.

Four days left.

Just four more days.