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“Oh, and Marlowe,” she said, right as I turned to leave. “Bring me a fresh bottle of Véla from the fridge. I have a dinner tonight. I want to look luminous.”

I grabbed the bottle, the same product I’d grabbed for her dozens of times before, and this time it felt heavier than I remembered. The serum inside was a dark, honey-colored gloop, and I wondered which wealthy woman would be smearing my own life force over her face. What bottle my sacrifice had been filtered into. I set it on her vanity, went into the guest bath, and washed my hands to the elbow like a surgeon.

Back in the kitchen, Sofia had arrived and was cleaning out the fridge, sweat-stained, disheveled, and ready to commit homicide.

“You didn’t actually scrub the tiles?” I said.

“I did, on my knees in the sun,” she said, throwing expired quail eggs in the trash.

“Oh, Sofia.”

“She told me the house was holding resentment. The house isn’t holding resentment. I am.”

I left seething at Vivienne’s casual cruelty. I sat in traffic, my jaw tight from it, but then I glanced in my rearview mirror and worried more about what bloodcurdling thing might be waiting on my doorstep.

But before I drove home, I needed to stop by Priya’s apartment to drop off her wallet. When the buzzer let me in, a man stood in the doorway.

Adrian.

Tall, handsome, and still in his dress shirt from work.

Behind him, the apartment smelled like garlic and steam. Something was simmering. Somewhere down the hall, a bath was running.

“You must be Marlowe.” He smiled with his whole face. That was the first problem with Adrian: nothing about him looked like a warning. “Pri! Marlowe’s here!” He ushered me into the entryway.

Pri. That made my skin crawl.

She came out of the hallway in a robe with her hair in a towel, and we exchanged a lightning-quick, knowing glance at each other.

“You left this on my counter,” I said, holding the wallet out to her.

“Oh god, thank you.” She reached for the wallet.

Adrian’s hand arrived before hers did.

“I’ll put it with her keys,” he said, pleasantly, and there was no way to say no without it becoming a thing. He set it on the console table behind him.

“Stay for dinner,” he said. “There’s plenty. We’re doing a quiet night. She gives so much of herself away all week, you know? To everyone.” He glanced back at her with an expression I can only describe as devout.

“Wish I could,” I said, brightly. Three years of working for Vivienne had taught me immaculate voice brightness in the most excruciating moments. “Early start. Party this weekend.”

“Of course. The party.” He said it warmly. I fought my body’s attempt to go rigid. He knew exactly which party I was talking about. The fact that I didn’t know how he knew unsettled me even more.

Priya walked me the four steps to the door, Adrian’s eyes on us the whole way, so there wasn’t a word I could say to her.

I drove home with the image of him standing in that doorway burning itself into my mind.

Once inside my apartment, I flung my purse on the sofa and scanned every room. There was no sign anything was out of place. No gifts. I shoved the dresser in front of the door anyway.

Damian called me right after dinner to check that I was okay, and then, an hour later, texted me.

you were amazing yesterday. and infuriatingly beautiful. I’m trying to be disciplined about this. every time I touch you it gets more difficult.

I typed a reply that was probably much too long, then set down my phone, read some spicy romantasy, and closed my eyes. For the first time in weeks, nothing had gone wrong. I told myself that was good, that the plan was working. But my body wasn’t buying it. It lay there stiff under the covers, like it had never stopped bracing.

You’re being paranoid, I told myself, and almost believed it, until the doorbell woke me at 3 a.m.

Chapter Twenty-Nine