She looked closer at the woman standing beside him.
"...Who is she? That's not Elena."
A mischievous smile crept across her face.
"Surely Marcus hasn't taken a mistress."
The room fell silent.
Every pair of eyes shifted toward Mabel.
"What nonsense are you talking about?" she snapped sharply. "Marcus has always conducted himself with propriety."
Yet even as she spoke, her fingers trembled.
The cards slipped from her grasp, scattering across the polished tabletop.
Ignoring them, she snatched the photographs from her friend's hands.
The instant she saw the woman's face clearly, all the color drained from her own.
It wasn't some unknown woman.
It was Sophie.
The girl who had disappeared from their lives six years ago... and whom Mabel had never expected to see again.
Sophie had
