Elara's POV
White Sand Island sat off the eastern edge of the city, twenty minutes by the bridge road, another five through the private gate onto a narrow lane lined with old oak trees.
Victoria's villa sat at the end of it. Pale stone, wide windows, the kind of place that looked like it had grown out of the land around it rather than been built on top of it.
She was waiting at the front door when I pulled up.
Fifty-three years old, and she hadn't changed at all, as if time had been especially kind to her. Silver-streaked hair, cut to the collarbone. Reading glasses pushed up on her forehead. A cashmere cardigan, and the same bearing she'd always had.
Thirty years spent among people twice her age, and not once had she groveled or flattered her way through any of it.
Her eyes found m
