Chapter 2

The next morning, I woke up earlier than usual.

I lay there for a few minutes before getting out of bed and walking to the entryway.

Every gift Vincent had ever given me over the years was still there, stacked on the console table by the door.

A Cartier watch. A Hermès scarf. A Van Cleef necklace. A Tiffany bracelet.

I had kept every box. I remembered every occasion.

Christmas. Valentine’s Day. Our anniversary. The day I got promoted. The day our first job together went off without a hitch.

They were lined up in a neat row, filling the whole surface.

I stood there for a while, just looking at them, then went to take a shower.

While the hot water ran over me, my phone buzzed on the bathroom counter.

I dried my hand, picked it up, and saw a text from Vincent.

[Are you free this afternoon? Come by.]

I didn’t reply. I set the phone back down and finished my shower.

By the time I’d blow-dried my hair and changed, my phone rang again. This time, it was a call.

I answered.

“Scarlett can’t stomach the food the nanny makes.” Vincent’s tone was casual, like he was setting the agenda for a weekly meeting. “Come over and take care of her for a few days. You can also spend some time getting to know Nico.”

I stood by the window, gripping my phone, and said nothing.

“Elena? You there?”

I was. I was also hearing the exact same kind of favoritism he’d shown three years ago.

“You’re thoughtful. Come help take care of her for a few days.”

Back then, Scarlett had just had the baby.

Vincent had said those words while holding my hand, his eyes full of trust.

That whole week, I drove over every day to take care of Scarlett.

I watched her nurse the baby in her arms, never once bothering to avoid doing it in front of Vincent. I watched Vincent fuss over her in all the smallest ways.

I complained about it. It was the first real fight we ever had.

“Scarlett is my sister. She’s a single mother. She has it hard enough,” Vincent had said, frowning, his tone much sharper than it was now. “As the future hostess of this family, can’t you be a little more gracious?”

“Elena?”

My phone buzzed again.

I looked down.

A new message from Vincent. It was a photo.

Scarlett lying in a hospital bed. Her face pale. Her lips colorless. Her eyes half-closed.

The caption was only one sentence:

[She really doesn’t have much time left.]

I stared at the picture for a long time. Then I zoomed in, and zoomed in again. I studied her face. The IV in the back of her hand. The medical chart clipped beside her pillow.

I kept staring at the image. Something about it felt off. Wrong. Like the details didn’t quite match. But I couldn’t tell what exactly it was.

“Elena?”

I snapped back to myself.

“Okay,” I said.

There was a brief pause on the other end, and then Vincent’s voice sounded noticeably lighter. “I knew you’d understand. I’ll send you the address. Come this afternoon. Scarlett says she wants the pasta you make.”

“Got it.”

I hung up and tossed my phone onto the bed.

Then I sat down, opened my laptop, and logged into the Morello family’s internal system.

I pulled up Scarlett’s credit card statements, travel records, and social media activity from the past three months.

Three weeks ago, she’d played in an exhibition match in Miami.

Two weeks ago, she’d shot a magazine cover in New York.

Five days ago, her credit card had been used for a three-thousand-dollar purchase at Louis Vuitton on Fifth Avenue.

I saved screenshots of everything.

A woman with “late-stage breast cancer” had gone luxury shopping five days ago.

I wanted to see with my own eyes just how far she planned to take this performance.

I thought back to what Vincent had said in the study the night before.

“Once she dies, I’ll marry you.”

“Elena, I’m doing this for the child.”

I looked up at the row of gifts in the entryway, and suddenly one thing hit me.

Not once, in everything he said last night, had he told me he loved me.

Not once had he said he was sorry.

I walked to the entryway, opened my camera, and took a picture of all those gifts lined up on the console table.

Saved it. Kept it.

I needed to remind myself that some things had once been real.

Those gifts were real. Those days were real. All those moments when I believed he was going to marry me were real, too.

But now I needed to remember other things like last night and like today.

Like the fact that at three o’clock this afternoon, I’d be driving out to that villa in the suburbs to see the woman who was supposedly dying.

[I’ll be there at three.]

I wanted to see for myself how a professional tennis player had somehow been handed a death sentence in less than two weeks.