Skye’s POV
The estate has become a machine, and I am merely one of its moving parts.
Caterers in crisp black uniforms flow through hallways carrying silver trays laden with hors d'oeuvres I cannot name.
Florists construct elaborate centerpieces in the dining room, their hands moving with surgical precision through roses and eucalyptus.
A string quartet tunes instruments in the garden tent, their discordant warm-up notes drifting through open windows like a warning I am too distracted to heed.
I have spent the entire day avoiding all of them. Avoiding Kai most of all.
Though avoiding implies intention, and what happened between us feels larger than something I could navigate with mere avoidance.
It feels like a natural disaster I walked into with my eyes open, knowing the flood was coming, choosing to drown anyway.
Congratulations, Skye. You've really fucking outdone yourself this time.
We did not talk much yesterday. After—after everything—we fell asleep on the couch, my head on his chest, his hand tracing idle patterns on my bare shoulder.
His heartbeat steady beneath my ear. His breath evening out into something peaceful while I lay there cataloguing every reason this was catastrophic and finding myself unable to care about a single one.
Then we heard tires on gravel at four in the morning. Headlights were sweeping across the ceiling like searchlights hunting for criminals.
Diane and Heinrich, returning from their date.
We scrambled. Clothes snatched from the floor in the dark, shoes clutched in hands, my bra still unhooked as I fled upstairs with Kai's warmth still imprinted on my skin.
He disappeared down the hallway to his own room without a word, and I spent the remaining hours until dawn staring at my ceiling, feeling his absence like a phantom limb.
Thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. The particular torture of wanting something you know will destroy you—and wanting it anyway.
You absolute fucking idiot.
Now I stand in the foyer, wearing the dress my mother selected. Emerald silk, cut lower than I would have chosen myself, the fabric clinging in ways that make me feel exposed in rooms full of strangers.
I keep my back to the main staircase, afraid that if I see him descend—those dark eyes finding mine across the crowd—my face will betray everything I cannot afford to show.
The guests have begun arriving in waves. Laughter and perfume filling the spaces of the house, transforming Heinrich's estate into something glittering and even more performative.
I smile at people whose names I forget immediately, shake hands with men who look through me, accept compliments from women who are already calculating my net worth and finding it wanting.
Welcome to the circus, Skye. You're the saddest clown.
His voice comes from behind me, low and close enough that I feel his breath against my ear.
"That dress is a crime scene waiting to happen." The words send heat flooding through me, immediate and visceral. "I'm going to ruin it tonight, I promise you."
I turn, ready to say something reckless, ready to drag him into my bedroom and lock the door against caterers and guests and the entire constructed evening.
His eyes are dark with the same hunger I feel coiling through my chest, and for one reckless moment I consider reaching for him right here, in front of everyone, consequences be damned—
"Skye!" Diane's voice cuts through the noise, sharp with hostess anxiety. "The Shields are here. Come meet Heinrich's partners."
Of course. Of fucking course.
I bite back a curse, watch Kai's mouth curve in knowing amusement, and follow my mother into the receiving line.
Heinrich stands beside Diane, transformed by his tuxedo into something almost regal. He beams when he sees me and draws me forward with a hand at my elbow, guiding me toward a couple who radiate the particular confidence of old money.
"Zack, Sarah—my stepdaughter, Skye Fraser." His voice carries genuine warmth, and I feel a pang of guilt for how little I have given him in return. "She has a brilliant mind. Teaches literature at the academy."
Zack Shields is broad and weathered, the kind of man who probably golfs and owns boats and has never questioned whether he deserves the space he occupies. His handshake is firm without being aggressive, his smile reaching his eyes in a way that surprises me.
"Heinrich speaks very highly of you," he says. "Says you've got his son actually engaging with his coursework. That's no small feat, from what I understand."
"Kai is more perceptive than he lets on," I manage, and feel the truth of it settle uncomfortably in my chest. "He just needed the right motivation."
The right motivation being my tongue in his mouth and my legs around his waist, but sure, let's call it pedagogy.
Sarah Shields is elegant in pearls and a perfume I recognize immediately—Chanel No. 5, the aldehydic sparkle of ylang-ylang and neroli layered over a sandalwood base, classic and unimpeachable and exactly what a woman of her station would choose.
She takes my hand in both of hers, her grip warm and maternal.
"We'd love for you to meet our son," she says, her eyes scanning the doorway behind me. "Travis is late, as always. I swear that boy will be late to his own funeral, and I've told him as much repeatedly. He just laughs and tells me punctuality is for people without imagination."
"Must be something in the name," I say lightly, smiling through the social ritual while my pulse begins its traitorous acceleration. "I once knew a Travis who was always late to everything. Drove me quite mad."
Sarah laughs, a silver sound that rings through the foyer. "Then you'll understand our suffering completely. He's a good boy underneath all that charm, though. Just needs settling, as my mother used to say. Ah—there he is now."
She waves toward the entrance, and I follow the gesture, turning with the smile still fixed on my face like a mask I have forgotten how to remove.
The electricity hits me first.
A physical jolt that starts at my spine and radiates outward, every nerve ending screaming recognition before my mind catches up. Then the sickness, immediate and absolute, my stomach dropping through the floor as my vision narrows to a single point.
Travis Walker stands in the doorway.
He calls "Mother" with the easy affection of a son who knows he is forgiven before he apologizes, crossing toward his parents like he has never doubted his welcome anywhere.
Travis Walker—or is it Travis Shields now?—has changed in the two years since I escaped him—hair shorter, shoulders broader, the sharp jawline I once traced with fingers that did not yet know better.
He is smiling. Accepting Sarah's cheek-kiss with grace. Complaining about traffic with the charm that fooled everyone, that fooled me, that made me believe I had found something real until reality revealed itself.
I know his voice. Know the particular cadence of his lies, the way he laughs next and scans the room for someone useful, someone to impress, someone to consume.
I know how his hands feel when they grip hard enough to bruise, how his voice drops when he says my name like a threat dressed as an endearment.
I know the exact architecture of the damage he built inside me—the way he catalogued my insecurities and fed them back to me until I believed every poisoned word.
‘You're nothing without me,’ he used to say. ‘No one else will ever want you. You're lucky I put up with you at all.’
I stand frozen in emerald silk, Heinrich's hand still warm at my elbow, and feel the evening collapse around me like a structure built on sand.
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