Someone did this on purpose.
The thought crystallized through the shock.Winston in that box, months ago, his rhinestone collar still attached.The heating system sabotage that had nearly killed half a dozen guests.Now blood in the fountain, pumping through the jets, filling my hotel with the smell of death.
Escalating.Targeting.Someone wanted me terrified, and they were succeeding.
By three o’clock, the police had taken samples and statements.The fountain was being professionally cleaned by a hazmat crew in white suits, and the lobby was closed to guests.I sat in my office with the door closed, staring at the wall, a draft press statement open on my laptop that I couldn’t seem to write.
The cursor blinked.I had typed “The Hughes Palace Hotel regrets” and nothing else.
Clara called at four.
“I just heard.”Her voice was tight.“Are you okay?Are you safe?”
“I’m fine.”Another lie.I was shaking again, couldn’t seem to stop.The tremor had settled into my bones like a fever.“The police are handling it.”
“Come stay with me.Get out of that house.This is insane, Lena.Someone is targeting you, and you’re living with a man who might be?—”
“No.”
The word came out harder than I intended.Clara went quiet on the other end of the line.
“I’m not leaving.”I didn’t know why I was saying it.The manor wasn’t safe.Raphael wasn’t safe.Nothing about my current situation was remotely safe.But the thought of going somewhere else, being somewhere he wasn’t, sleeping in a room where I couldn’t hear his footsteps in the hallway below me…
I didn’t finish the thought.Couldn’t.
“Just… I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said, and hung up before she could argue.
The drive home was silent.I sat in the back seat and watched Paradise Peaks scroll past the tinted windows, the cute shops and the tourists and the normal people living normal lives, and none of it was real.
The manor appeared through the trees, and I waited for the familiar clench of resentment at the sight of it.The stone facade.The iron gates.The prison that wasn’t supposed to feel like anything else.
The clench didn’t come.
His car was in the drive.Home early.The sight of it should have made me angry.Instead, the tension in my chest loosened, just slightly, just enough to notice.
I went straight upstairs.Alice brought food that I couldn’t eat.I showered, scrubbing until my skin was raw, but the copper smell lingered in my sinuses, in my hair, in the back of my throat.Three showers and I still smelled it.The ring felt heavier than usual, the band tight around my finger.I paced my room, unable to settle, unable to think about anything except the blood pumping through the fountain and the way Michael had been so ready to take over and the fact that somewhere in this town, someone hated me enough to do that.
Downstairs, I heard him moving.The creak of his study door.Footsteps crossing the hallway toward the foyer.
Then nothing.The silence stretched, weighted with intention, as if he were standing below my room and waiting to see if I would come down.
My heart was loud in my ears.I stood frozen in the middle of my bedroom, one hand pressed to my chest, and listened to him listen for me.
He went back to his study without coming up.
I tried wine.Tried reading.Tried the breathing exercises Sophie had taught me during the spa’s opening week.Nothing worked.The terror was still there, crawling under my skin, and I needed it gone.I needed to feel something other than afraid.Other than helpless.Other than the woman who had stood shaking in a back hall while someone else handled her crisis.
Clara’s voice in my head.Use him.
If I was going to be trapped in this marriage, I might as well take what I wanted from it.
The anger was still there.Good.I needed it.And underneath the anger, a shameful truth.I was already wet.Had been since I heard his footsteps cross the foyer.My body wanted him even when my mind screamed betrayal.
I was moving before I made a conscious decision.Down the stairs.The railing cool under my palm.Through the hallway.The study door opened without resistance under my hand.
He looked up from his desk.The lamp threw shadows across his face, catching his eyes, making them gleam strangely in the low light.Something almost amber beneath the gray.He didn’t speak.Just watched me cross the room toward him, waiting.
The silence stretched.He didn’t fill it.
