Chapter Three

Alexander’s text arrived as expected the next morning, the cold glow of my screen reflecting on my sleepless face.

Isabella wants to go to the new theme park tomorrow. You’ll go with her. Consider it compensation for yesterday’s accident.

The words carried that same entitled authority. No request. Not even simple respect.

Compensation? For whom, exactly?

I’d just typed out my refusal when another message came through.

You’re still my secretary. This is a work assignment—accompanying the future lady of the house. At worst, I’ll pay you double. Besides, don’t you love these places anyway?

Money. Again.

I’d never realized, until then, how deeply he believed I worshipped it. All those times I’d begged him to go to the amusement park with me, he’d refused, saying that after work he just preferred to stay home.

Apparently, I was the one who shouldn’t be seen in public.

In the end, I went.

I was still his secretary. I was just following a boss’s order.

The next day at the park entrance, I saw Isabella again. She was dressed in expensive casualwear, radiantly pretty. The moment she spotted me, she flashed an utterly flawless, sugar-sweet smile.

“Lillian! Thanks so much for coming.” She came over, all warmth and familiarity, as if we were close girlfriends. “I’m really sorry about yesterday—it was just an accident. I wasn’t even really hurt, just got scared. But Alexander freaked out and insisted on bringing me here to relax. And now we’ve dragged you all the way out here to babysit me.”

I could feel Alexander’s gaze resting on me.

I forced the muscles in my face to move, pulling out a professional, utterly impersonal smile. “It’s no trouble, Miss Wentworth. This is part of my job.”

For the rest of the day, Isabella flitted around like an excited songbird, clinging to Alexander’s arm, squealing over every ride.

“Alexander, look at that one!”

“Let’s go on that next, okay?”

They laughed about memories, shared private little looks. Their easy intimacy shut me out completely.

All those tender little gestures that might once have existed in my life, now became dull knives, sawing slowly but relentlessly at my nerves.

But I was only the spectator they’d hired to watch their little romance movie.

For dinner, they’d reserved an outdoor table at an upscale restaurant overlooking the entire park. Isabella pored over the menu, ordering eagerly, and chose the most expensive seafood dishes.

“The blue lobster here is famous. Alexander, you have to try it.”

When the platter arrived on a bed of ice, garnished to perfection, my stomach began to twist. I was severely allergic to shellfish; he’d once watched me break out in hives and struggle to breathe from a single bite of shrimp.

He’d gone white as a sheet that night and stayed with me in the hospital until dawn. After that, seafood vanished from our table.

Now, he calmly picked up the tools and began cracking open the lobster shell, carefully separating the snowy meat, dipping it in sauce, and placing it on Isabella’s plate. His movements were practiced, his manner almost deliberately gentle.

“Lillian, why aren’t you eating?” Isabella asked as she accepted another piece, her eyes drifting to my untouched plate. “You look awful… Do you not like what I ordered?”

Alexander glanced up, his brows tightening, as if my silence were ruining the mood.

“If I tell you to eat, you eat.” He snapped, pulling out his wallet and tossing a few bills onto the table like it was nothing. “Don’t upset Isabella.”

Those few notes hit the linen tablecloth like a slap across my face.

I stared at his familiar yet suddenly strange profile. The last faint spark in my chest went out with a soft hiss.

“Alexander, are you sure you want me to eat this?” My voice came out too calm.

He clearly didn’t expect the question. For a moment he froze, then irritation flared, like he heard a challenge in it. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

“Okay.” I let out the word slowly.

Then I picked up my fork.

Without dipping it in any sauce, I speared a large chunk of cold lobster and put it in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed. My movements were slow, deliberate, and final.

My throat began to tighten, an army of invisible ants swarming under my skin, prickling and burning their way outward. I put the fork down, stood up, and didn’t even glance at the money on the table.

“I’m off the clock.”

I turned and walked away, my back perfectly straight. Isabella’s playful complaints and Alexander’s low voice coaxing her blurred into meaningless noise behind me.

I hadn’t gotten far from the restaurant when a wave of dizziness crashed over me. The world spun violently, voices receding as if down a long tunnel. I reached out blindly for something, anything, to hold onto—but my fingers found nothing but air.

Just before the darkness swallowed me, I thought I heard my phone ringing faintly in my bag.

Probably Margaret, calling to ask where we should meet after my flight landed.