All Chapters of GUILTY OF LOVING YOU: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

POV: LisaThe first thing Lisa heard was her father’s name.Not the music from the ballroom. Not the clink of crystal or the polished laughter of two hundred forty-three people performing their best version of a Tuesday night in Manhattan.The name.Hasse.It slipped from a detective’s mouth in a low voice, careless enough to travel, sharp enough to enter her body before her mind could defend itself.Lisa did not move.She stood at the edge of the Waldorf-Astoria’s private corridor with a champagne flute still in her hand, untouched, useless, trembling only because her fingers had begun to tremble. At the end of the hallway, white marble was no longer white. A dark stain spread across it with patient certainty.Victor Elsner was no longer standing anywhere in the room.For one impossible second, Lisa’s mind tried to reject the order of things. Victor could not be on the floor. Ethan could not be twelve meters away looking as if the ground had been taken from under him. Her father coul

POV: LisaThe side corridor of the Waldorf-Astoria was not meant for grief.It had a worn burgundy carpet, landscapes no one had chosen with love, and a long window overlooking Park Avenue, where cars kept moving as if the city had not noticed a man had just died above its head.Lisa thought that was obscene.The world should have stopped.It never did.Ethan stood near the window with his back half-turned, shoulders rigid beneath the black fabric of his tuxedo. Lisa stood one meter away. She knew because she counted things when she was close to panic. One meter. Three paintings. Seven cars passing before either of them spoke.Two hours ago, they had been hiding from a gala.Now their families were being pulled apart by police.—Say it, Lisa said.Ethan did not turn.—Say what?—Whatever you brought me here to say.His reflection in the window looked like a stranger wearing Ethan’s face.—There were two hundred forty-three people in that ballroom, he said.—By morning, all of them wil

POV: LisaTwo months after the Waldorf, Lisa Hasse knew exactly how long a life could keep moving after it had been split in half.Sixty-one days.Civil Procedure at nine. Criminal Evidence at eleven. Her father’s case from two to six, sometimes seven, depending on how many contradictions Hamilton was willing to share before remembering she was still a daughter and not yet a lawyer. Nights were for timelines, hotel maps, witness names, and the same question written at the top of every page.Who used my credential?Routine did not heal her. It kept her useful.That was enough.✦—You skipped breakfast again, Camille said, dropping a wrapped bagel onto Lisa’s open notebook.They were in the Columbia library, surrounded by students who worried about exams, internships, bad coffee, and ordinary heartbreaks. Lisa envied them with an ugliness she never said out loud.—I had coffee.—Coffee is not breakfast.—It has calories if you are generous with interpretation.Camille sat across from he