Scarlett’s POV
It started, as these things often do, with the sound of heels.
Clicking against the marble floor, a little too sharp, a little too purposeful. I knew that rhythm, it was Cassie’s version of a battle cry.
I was in the morning room, flipping through a book I hadn’t read in years, the kind I chose not for the words but for the way it let me disappear. I heard her before I saw her. Then came the scent, too floral, too expensive, too Cassie.
“Scarlett,” she said, dragging my name out like it offended her mouth. “Still playing the patient little housewife?”
I closed the book slowly. “Cassie. I didn’t realize we were expecting you.”
“You never do,” she replied, her tone airy with the kind of malice that arrives in pearls. “I was just in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop by.
