I move beside Violet's horse again, positioning myself where Jake can't overhear. My voice stays sweet. Patient. The perfect tutorial tone.
"Watch closely." I demonstrate the brush stroke along the horse's shoulder. "You want to follow the natural grain. See how the muscles relax?"
Violet mirrors the motion with exaggerated care. "Like this?"
"Better." I keep my eyes on her hands while my voice drops to something sharper. "Now tell me what exactly you think you're doing."
Her brush pauses mid-stroke. "Excuse me?"
"Pursuing Jake." The words come out quiet. Controlled. Deadly. "The touching. The helplessness routine. The flirting that you think is subtle."
Violet's smile transforms. The sweetness drains away, replaced by something venomous. Calculated.
"And you aren't?" She tilts her head, studying me like I'm a puzzle she's already solved. "Pursuing him, I mean. Because only someone blind would miss the tension crackling between you two."
My jaw tightens. I focus on the horse's coat, brushing with more force than necessary.
"He's far too old for you." I keep my voice even. "Whatever game you're playing, it won't work."
"Too old for me." Violet laughs, the sound carrying an edge that cuts. "That's rich. My mother told me everything, you know."
My hands go still.
"The charity gala." Violet's voice drops to something intimate. Conspiratorial. "Security dragging Jake out while he reached desperately for you. The tabloid photos that followed. The scandal that had Manhattan talking for a week."
The memory crashes through me—Jake's hand reaching out to me to go home with him, and his face when I pulled away.
Damn, we really were careless. In front of everyone. But I didn't think Victoria was studying the situation. Although she is not indifferent to me, of course she is worried and analyzes everything.
However, it is important not to give Violet any new evidence right now. And try to become an authority figure that she would be better off not going against.
"That's gossip." I force the words out. "Manipulation. Your mother saw one moment and invented a story around it."
"Did she?" Violet's eyebrows rise. "Because the way she described it, Jake Sullivan looked like a man watching his whole world slip away. And you looked like a woman who wanted to follow him but couldn't."
I say nothing. The brush moves mechanically across the horse's flank.
"So here's what I'm thinking." Violet steps closer, her voice dropping further. "Either there's something real between you two—something you're both too scared or too stupid to act on—or there's nothing at all." She shrugs, the gesture deliberately casual. "If it's nothing, then I don't see why I shouldn't keep flirting. He's attractive. I'm bored. It passes the time."
"You're nineteen." The reminder sounds weak even to my own ears.
"Old enough to know what I want." Violet's smile sharpens into something cruel. "And experienced enough to get it."
She leans against the stall door, her posture shifting to something older. More knowing.
"Want to hear something interesting?" She doesn't wait for my answer. "A few months ago, my father had a dinner party. Business colleagues. Investors. Very sophisticated crowd."
My stomach begins to turn. Something in her tone warns me I don't want to hear what comes next.
"One of his friends—Thomas, I think. Maybe forty-five? Very distinguished." Violet examines her nails with theatrical boredom. "He kept watching me all through dinner. That look men get when they're trying to decide if you're worth the risk."
"Violet—"
"I decided for him." Her eyes meet mine, glittering with something dark. "Excused myself halfway through dessert. He followed five minutes later. My parents were drinking coffee in the next room while I fucked their friend against the guest bathroom vanity."
I definitely didn't want to hear or know that.
The stable smells intensify around me—hay and horse and leather and something underneath that makes my throat close. The nausea that's been lurking all morning surges forward without warning, crashing over me in waves I can't control.
Not just from Violet's words. From everything. The smells. The heat. The life growing inside me that chooses this moment to make itself violently known.
"I think you've learned enough for today." My voice comes out strangled. Wrong.
I set down the brush with shaking hands and move toward the stable entrance. Each step feels like wading through water. The exit seems impossibly far away.
"Adison." Jake's voice catches me at the door. Concerned. Alert. "You okay?"
I don't turn around. Can't let him see my face.
"Fine." The lie scrapes past the tightness in my throat. "Just remembered some work I forgot to handle. Documents that need reviewing."
I don't wait for his response. My feet carry me across the yard, toward the house, toward the bathroom where I can fall apart in private.
The tile is cool when my knees hit the floor. I barely make it to the toilet before my body empties itself, ruthless and complete.
My phone rings.
The sound cuts through the retching, sharp and insistent. I fumble for it without thinking, answering on reflex before my brain catches up.
"Adison." Zachary's voice fills my ear. Warm. Concerned. Completely wrong for this moment. "I wanted to check—has Jake left yet? I noticed on your calendar that—"
"I'm busy." The words come out harsh. Desperate.
"Are you alright? You sound—"
"I said I'm busy."
I disconnect the call just as another wave crashes over me. The phone clatters against the tile. My forehead presses against cool porcelain.
And somewhere inside me, cells keep dividing. Keep multiplying. Keep becoming something that won't wait for me to figure out how to survive the next five minutes.