I had been the one to vet Kate before Damian ever offered her that contract on Ronald.
It had struck me as strange at the time, how her past was a blank slate. No parents. No siblings. No discoverable relatives. I'd filed it away as good news. An orphan with no anchors was easier to pull into our orbit.
I had never once stopped to wonder what it cost her to be that orphan.
What I knew now was that Kate had buried her mother at sixteen. With her own hands.
We had a contract that bound her to us. I had lived under the same roof as her for nearly a month. I knew every ugly seam of her marriage. I knew more about her husband than her husband knew about himself. I knew she was a gifted interior designer.
I had never once asked about her life before any of it.
I'd been too busy arranging h
