Ella
The days after the garden fell into a rhythm I hadn't expected to find, something almost like peace threaded through the ongoing weight of Danika's investigation and the constant, careful maintenance of Isabella's public life. Kylian and I stopped pretending, even to ourselves, that what was between us belonged only to the plan.
Vanessa invited "Isabella" to lunch again three weeks after the gala, and this time I understood, walking into the restaurant she'd chosen, that it wasn't only surveillance drawing me toward her. Some part of me still wanted to understand her, the woman she'd become since I'd last known her honestly, before the current of her mother's ambition and Adrian's charm had pulled her somewhere I couldn't follow.
"You look happy," Vanessa said, studying me across t
