Jason's POV
It takes me twenty minutes to extract myself from the dinner without causing a scene, twenty minutes of watching the door Becca disappeared through while Susie Booker asks polite questions about the estate's charitable foundations and I answer on autopilot, my whole body angled toward an exit I can't take yet without confirming every suspicion in that room.
I find her in the garden eventually, exactly where I hoped and feared she'd be, arms wrapped tight around herself against a cold sharp enough to see her breath.
She doesn't turn when I approach. The path crunches under my shoes, loud in the frozen quiet, and still she keeps her back to me, staring at the dead rose bushes like they hold some answer I'm not equipped to give her.
"Becca."
"Don't." Her voice is steady, whi
