*FABIOLA*
“MISTRESS.”
The word echoes in the cool study, stilling every living, breathing thing, including me.
I turn to see a tall blonde woman in a wrap around dress glaring daggers at me.
“Leave us. I’d like to have a word with my husband,” the woman, Francisca, says, shifting her glare upward, dismissing me as if I’m trash.
“Stay right where you are, Miss Vance,” Maximus II counters from behind. “She can have a word with both of us.”
“I said leave!”
“Stay!”
Francisca’s lips curl, pinning me with a burning look. “Are you deaf or just shameless? Leave us, hooker.”
If she’s calling me a hooker, she really needs to look in the mirror. Regardless of the insult, I make a move to stand, desperate to escape the suffocating tension of the study and get my bearings on what the hell is
