PROLOGUE: LANA
I stand at the window of our bedroom—Gabriel's bedroom, really, since he chose everything in it—and watch rain streak the glass. The ocean churns below, waves eating themselves against the cliffs. It's past midnight. The house sleeps around me, every part of it holding their collective breath.
Gabriel is downstairs. I heard him pour another scotch ten minutes ago, the crystal decanter clinking against the glass in that particular way that means he's past careful and approaching cruelty.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I freeze. The sound cuts through the quiet house like a blade. It's past midnight—who would text this late? I reach for it, but before my fingers touch the screen, I hear Gabriel's footsteps on the stairs. Fast and purposeful.
He heard it too.
The bedroom door opens without knocking. Gabriel never knocks anymore.
"Who's texting you at this hour?" he asks, and it's not a question. He's already crossing to the nightstand, reaching past me to grab my phone before I can.
I watch him unlock it—he knows my passcode, insisted I give it to him two years ago "for emergencies"—and read whatever message just came through. His jaw tightens.
"A gallery opening next week," he says, his voice dangerously quiet. "At midnight. They're sending you invitations at midnight."
It's probably automated. A mass email converted to text. But I know better than to explain that.
"Who else are you talking to?" He scrolls through my messages now, looking for evidence of the betrayal he's convinced exists. Finding nothing, he tosses my phone onto the bed with disgust. "Because this—" he gestures at me, the phone, the room, "this secrecy, this distance—it's just given me the excuse I needed."
"Excuse for what?"
"To have the conversation you've been avoiding." His voice carries that false gentleness he uses when he's building toward something worse. "Who is he? Because there is someone, isn't there, Lana? There must be. Otherwise, why would you lie?"
I hadn't lied. I'd simply stopped telling him where I went every Tuesday afternoon. The gallery visits. The café where I sat alone and read books he'd never approve of. The long walks through The Margin where no one knew my face or my husband's net worth.
But to Gabriel, privacy is dishonesty. Silence is betrayal.
"What do you want me to say?" I ask, and I hate how small my voice sounds. How practiced at submission.
"The truth would be refreshing." He reaches out, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear with fingers that linger too long against my jaw. The gesture looks tender. It's not. "Who have you been seeing?"
"No one."
"Liar." His hand drops away. He walks to the door, pauses, looks back. His eyes are red-rimmed from the scotch, but his hands are steady. That's the thing about Gabriel—he never loses control. Even drunk, he's calculating. "Downstairs. Now. We're going to have this conversation properly."
"It's late—"
"I don't care what time it is." His reflection catches in the window, he looks handsome, always handsome. Strong jaw. Perfect teeth. The kind of face that photographs well at charity galas. "You don't get to decide when we talk, Lana. That's not how this works. Unless you'd like me to come back and carry you?"
He would. I've seen him carry furniture he decided was in the wrong room, seen him manhandle the housekeeper's son when the kid accidentally broke a vase. Gabriel is strong, and he likes you to remember it.
So, I follow. Barefoot, wearing the silk nightgown he prefers, I follow my husband down the curved staircase into the heart of what was once my home—the house my parents built when I was twelve, filled with their dreams of family dinners and grandchildren running through the halls.
They left it to me when they died, and Gabriel moved in after the wedding. Within six months, he'd stripped out every trace of warmth they'd built into these walls and replaced it with museum-quality coldness. Everything white, cream, and glass. Expensive things arranged just so. Including me.
I wear what he chooses. I attend what he schedules. I smile when he needs me decorative and disappear when he needs me gone.
Five years of this. Five years of diminishing myself piece by piece until I'm not sure what remains.
The kitchen gleams in recessed lighting, all marble and stainless steel. Gabriel's made himself comfortable at the island, his scotch glass refilled, the decanter within reach. Another glass sits empty beside his—waiting for me, presumably, though I won't drink. I need to stay sharp.
"Sit," he says, as he picks up his glass, gesturing to the barstool across from him.
I sit.
