Hazel's POV
The week before the gala, Eleanor called later than usual, her voice tight with something I hadn't heard from her before, a kind of careful urgency, like she was handling something sharp and didn't want to cut either of us on the way to setting it down.
"I need to tell you something," she said, "and I need you to sit down first."
I sat, obediently, on the edge of my narrow London bed, the phone pressed hard against my ear.
"Julian hired an investigator months ago," she said. "Not to find you exactly, though I think that started it. He's been digging into the accident. The real accident, Hazel. Michael let it slip at a dinner party that Penelope paid a driver to clip Julian's car five years ago, to scare him into staying in the country. Nobody was supposed to actually get hu
