Sixteen years old and sharp in a way that missed nothing, Isla had stood at that window and watched Sebastian outside our building. The moment that truth settled in, something inside me tightened.
The clock on my secret, the one I had kept locked away for sixteen years had started ticking, loud and impossible to ignore.
I looked at her standing there in the hallway, still in her pajamas, eyes fixed on me in that quiet, searching way that had always made lying to her feel worse than it should.
I made a decision at that moment, not the brave one, not the right one, just the only one I had the strength for at nine-thirty at night, after everything had already drained me dry.
“It was a work thing,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Someone from the Hale account. It couldn’t wait.”
Isla di
