NIKO.
I should not have been surprised when the decorator turned out to be her, the woman with fire in her kiss and defiance in her eyes. But the moment Alex stepped into the kitchen, shock tightening her features, my breath hitched in a way I wasn’t proud of. I had known the second I stepped into the mansion that she had arrived; Edmund had mentioned it earlier. And I had already recognized her from the photo Maggie sent days ago. I had approved of her within ten seconds of looking at that picture, an impulsive decision I told myself was nothing more than “selecting the best candidate.”
But the truth lingered bitterly at the edges of my mind: I hadn’t chosen her for professionalism.
I had chosen her because something about her face, her steady eyes and a faint but unbroken confidence i
