Under His Roof

CHAPTER I

The silver valet ticket felt like paper money in my palm, crisp and utterly meaningless.

Outside the sleek glass doors of The Grand Palais, rain hit the pavement in hard, glossy sheets, but inside, the air smelled of imported orchids and vintage champagne.

I smoothed the front of my cream silk blazer, waiting for the attendant to bring my car around.

I had just dropped three thousand dollars on a handbag I didn't even particularly like, mostly because my friend Chloe had murmured that it was reserved for preferred clients only.

My phone buzzed in my palm.

The caller ID showed my mother’s name, accompanied by a picture of her lounging beside our infinity pool in Amalfi.

I swiped to answer.

"Mom, if this is about the summer gala dress, the tailor said..."

"Daphne. Come home. Now."

The tone was wrong.

It wasn’t her usual sharp, commanding voice. It sounded hollow, like a thin shell about to crack.

Before I could ask a single question, the line went dead.

Ten minutes later, I pulled my convertible into the winding cobblestone driveway of the Calloway estate.

The iron gates were wide open, swaying slightly in the damp wind.

That was the first anomaly.

The second was the lack of lights in the foyer.

Usually, the marble entryway was lit like a museum, highlighting the floor to ceiling modern art my father collected.

I stepped inside, my designer heels clicking loudly against the stone.

"Mom? Dad?"

My parents were sitting together in the library.

Dad had his head buried in his hands, his tailored suit jacket discarded over the back of an antique sofa.

Mom was staring out the floor to ceiling windows into the darkness, holding a glass of scotch she hadn't touched.

"What's going on?" I asked, setting my fresh shopping bags on the glass coffee table. "You're acting weird. Did the housekeeper quit again?"

Dad looked up.

His eyes were bloodshot, the fine lines around his face suddenly looking deep and ragged.

"It's over, Daph."

"What's over?"

I chuckled, a small, nervous sound.

"The board meeting?"

"Everything," he whispered. "The firm. The assets. The holdings. The offshore accounts are frozen. The federal investigators stepped in at four o'clock."

I stared at him, waiting for the punchline.

This was a joke.

A dramatic stunt to teach me a lesson about my monthly credit limits.

"Dad, stop. That’s not funny. I need to pay the deposit for the weekend ski chalet in ten minutes."

"You don't have a deposit," Mom said softly, turning around.

Her eyes were rimmed with red.

"The bank canceled your black card twenty minutes ago, sweetheart. They’re foreclosing on this house by the end of the week."

The air left my lungs in a cold rush.

I pulled my phone from my purse, my thumb flying across the screen to check my banking app.

Red error text flashed across the interface:

Account Suspended.

I opened my messages.

Three texts from Chloe sat unread, asking why my card had been declined at the boutique down the street.

"No," I said, my voice rising as panic finally clawed its way up my throat. "No, you're exaggerating. Call the lawyers. Sell the boat in Monaco. We don't just lose everything."

"There is nothing left to sell, Daphne!"

Dad snapped, his voice breaking with a terrifying mix of grief and rage.

"It's gone. All of it."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

I stood frozen, surrounded by the oil paintings, the custom Italian furniture, the polished marble.

All of it suddenly transformed into a set design for a life I didn't own anymore.

The security I had taken for granted since the day I was born had simply vanished into thin air.

Mom walked over, placing a trembling hand on my shoulder.

"Your father and I have to stay in the city to deal with the legal proceedings. The press is going to be brutal, and we can't protect you here."

"Protect me?" I echoed, my vision blurring with hot, furious tears. "Where am I supposed to go? I can't stay at Chloe's if everyone knows we're broke!"

"You're not staying with Chloe," Mom said quietly.

"We arranged for you to leave town tonight. You're going to stay with some old friends of ours. People who owe your father a favor from years ago, before the money."

I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand, my pride stinging more than the sudden shock.

"Who?"

Mom swallowed hard, looking away for a fraction of a second.

"The Bennetts."

The name drifted through the quiet library, ringing a tiny, distant bell in the back of my mind.

I searched my memory, pulling up a ghost of a summer camp years ago, a cramped SUV, and a boy with bruised knuckles, dark eyes, and a scowl that seemed permanently etched onto his face.

"You remember Zeke Bennett, don't you?" Mom whispered.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

Zeke Bennett.

The boy who had treated me like a minor inconvenience, who had laughed in my face when I complained about the mud on my shoes, and who had made it crystal clear that he loathed every single thing I represented.

I was moving in with the one person who hated me most.