Chapter 9: A Stranger’s Mansion

I lay in the car, rope biting my wrists, cold settling deep in my bones. My thoughts raced. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe the Caleb they spoke of wasn’t my husband. My Caleb was a broke grad student, a man who loved me at first sight, who’d rather read to chickens than dress for a gala.

He cooked, he cared, he made me stewed pear soup.

He said, when he passed his exams, I’d meet his family.

Passed his exams? That was it. Caleb had passed.

A sudden splash of cold water snapped me back to reality. I jerked awake, blinking up into the steely eyes of a woman old enough to command respect, her gaze sharp as a winter wind.

"Now that you’re in the Foster mansion, you’d better learn the rules. Speak out of turn or embarrass the family and you’ll regret it."

They loaded me into a wheelchair, blue vinyl seat sticky with age, and wheeled me past gleaming marble columns, under chandeliers that sparkled like frozen rain. I lost count of the doors—each more ornate than the last—until we reached a courtyard bursting with magnolias, their scent heavy in the air.

A squad of maids and housekeepers descended, stripping me of my dusty clothes, painting my face with powder that smelled like her grandma’s attic, pinning up my hair. Hands tugged and twisted, dusted my face with powder that smelled like her grandma’s attic. Someone yanked my hair so tight my eyes watered. In the mirror, I saw a stranger—someone fragile and out of place.

As soon as they’d finished, the doors opened. I heard his voice before I saw him.

Caleb, in a tailored suit and gold tie clip, radiated a calm confidence I’d never seen. He looked taller, older, somehow more dangerous.

"Aubrey, it’s been a while. Did you miss me?"