She should just do it.
Come up with an ending so good—soundeniablygood—that Rufus Beaumont has to accept it.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission, she thinks, backing away from the door.
She turns and marches back toward the castle, feet crunching on the gravel.
Kenzo’s standing on the front steps, cradling an espresso and staring out at the sea, and something in her loosens at the sight. She wonders if he saw her, coming from the cottage. But when his gaze shifts from the cliffs to her, he doesn’t mention it, just cocks his head and flashes her an affable smirk.
Sienna wants to tell him everything—about going into Fletch’s room, about the half-written note and the misaligned G, about the secret ladder down into Millie’s room. She wants to, but something stops her.
A tiny warning tightness in her chest.
She likes Kenzo. She wants to trust him. But the sight of those pages in Rufus’s hand reminded her—there are millions of dollars at stake. This is a competition. And only one of them can win.
So when Kenzo asks her how it’s going, Sienna swallows and smiles.
“It’s going well,” she lies, then slips past him into the house.
She sags back against the library door, rubbing her eyes.
“Get a grip,” she mutters to herself.
“Are you okay?”
Sienna jumps, heart pounding in her chest. She thought the room was empty, but Cate’s standing on a footstool in the corner, hand raised like a kid reaching for a cookie jar, fingers skimming one of Fletch’s many books.
“Oh my god.” Sienna’s nerves are still jangling. “I didn’t see you there.” She glances at the shelf, a run of special editions, their spines glinting like brass. “I think those are in German.”
Cate lets out a shallow laugh. “Oh, yeah. I know.” She tugs one free, revealing a silhouette of Petrarch, backlit by streetlights. “I thought the covers might trigger some ideas.” She returns the book to its spot and sighs. “Grasping at straws, I know,” she adds, hopping down.
Sienna’s gaze flicks toward the dollhouse, fingers twitching with the urge to find the hinge, search the model for more secrets, but she doesn’t want an audience, and besides, secrets won’t write this goddamn book.
“Sorry,” she says, reaching for the door. “I’ll find somewhere else to work.”
“No, please stay,” says Cate with a weak smile. “Who knows, maybe your creativity will rub off on me. Like...”
“Narrative osmosis?” ventures Sienna.
Cate bobs her head, dark hair skimming her shoulders. “Exactly.”
She pads back across the room and takes a seat on the floor beside the model, all four books in the Petrarch series spread around her. The manuscript too, fanned out like a summoning circle, though, judging by the tired tension in Cate’s face, not a terribly successful one. The silence in the room is muffled, heavy.
“I’m surprised you’re not playing music,” says Sienna.
Cate glances up, confused, and she points to the record player tucked in the far corner. “When we were loading our stuff in the safe, you said you needed your phone, because you listen to music when you write.”
Cate blinks. “Oh. Yeah,” she says, and Sienna realizes she’s probably too young to know how the record player works. She’s about to offer to show her when Cate gestures at the scattered books on the floor. “I don’t think you can call this writing. It’s more like... quiet panic.”
Sienna joins her on the floor. “When I get stuck, I find it helps to remember why I wanted to be a writer in the first place.”
Cate frowns, a small furrow between her brows.
Sometimes it’s hard, Sienna knows, to find the right words. “At dinner, you said something about your mother?”
Cate straightens at that, a fresh light shining in her eyes when they find Sienna’s.
“Yeah,” she says. “My mum cared about writing more than anything.” Her gaze escapes back to the work spread on the floor. “She dreamed of being a famous author, just like Fletch.”
