Raellyn instinctively turned around, startled, when the heavy wooden door creaked open and revealed the presence of a woman dressed in neat servant attire stepping into the room. There was something unsettling in the quiet grace with which she moved too calm, too precise. It amplified Raellyn’s anxiety rather than soothing it.
“Madam Raellyn,” the woman spoke with a small, respectful bow. “My name is Rona. I have been assigned by Master Arnav to be your personal maid starting tonight.”
“Hello, Rona,” Raellyn responded almost too quickly, her voice an octave higher than usual.
It was as though a switch had flipped inside her.
In an instant, she morphed into a role she had written a dozen times in her scripts the elegant wife of a powerful man, composed, commanding, untouchable. Her trem
