جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 4

Victoria's POV I knew the exact date I was going to die, and it was printed on page 412. That was the thought in my head when I opened my eyes. Not where am I, not who is touching my shoulder. Just that cruel little line from a novel I had thrown across my apartment two weeks earlier. Victoria Ashford was found at the bottom of the Sterling staircase on the night of her first anniversary, and no one in the story cried for her. "Miss Victoria? Miss Victoria, please. The stylist has been waiting for an hour." A woman in a gray uniform was bent over me, her hand trembling against my arm. Behind her, the ceiling was higher than my entire old kitchen. A chandelier hung over the bed, scattering light across silk sheets the color of cream. I sat up. My head did not pound the way it had for months, the way it always did after double shifts and cold coffee and the smell of hospital corridors. My shoulders did not ache. My hands, when I lifted them, were smooth and pale, with nails painted

Victoria's POV Isabella Moore did not walk into the ballroom. She arrived in it, the way weather arrives. Every head turned to follow her. Three hundred guests who had spent the afternoon congratulating me suddenly forgot my name. Her white dress was cut simply enough to look innocent and expensive enough to cost a fortune, and she carried her tears the way other women carried handbags, held high where everyone could admire them. Alexander stood frozen beside my chair. I watched his hand open and close once at his side. In the novel, this was the scene where the original Victoria stood up and made a fool of herself. She called Isabella a snake. She threw a glass. Page 63 described her as shrieking in a wedding gown while the heroine sobbed in the arms of the groom, and I remembered thinking, even then, that no author would write a villainess so stupid unless she needed one. I stayed in my chair. I folded my napkin into a neat square and set it beside my plate. Isabella crossed