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I reach for his arm and squeeze his bicep. He doesn't relax until I'm inside the car again.

I hand the cake pops to the kids. They demolish them in under thirty seconds.

Klaus is inside the car, but his mind is somewhere else. He's lost in thought again, worrying about something he refuses to share with me.

"Are you okay, Miss Turner?" Rosalie asks.

Everyone in the car looks at me. I nod.

"Yes, sweetheart," I say. "I'm fine."

I still feel Rosalie watching me. The words she said earlier haunt my head.

That's why she's hiding now. You should ask Uncle Klaus about it. He knows everything.

For not the first time, I'm left wonderingif I know this family as well as I think I do.

34

EMMA

“Whoa,” James breathes, practically pressing his nose to the car window.

The silhouette of Vera’s lakefront mansion appears above the thick canopy of trees. The setting sun shines a spotlight over the French-château style building, making it appear nostalgic even though it’s my first time here.

“It’s so much prettier than our house,” Rosalie says, her eyes as wide as saucers.

I stifle a laugh at her blunt honesty. But I also understand why she thinks that. While the Sinclair mansion is an absolute beast, this building has the elegance of a Scottish castle. Dark green ivy climbs up the gray stone walls. The lake behind the property glitters under the last rays of the sun.

As we pass through the driveway, the moody gray skies part to spill orange-hued sunshine on the world below.

It feels like waking up from a long nap on a Sunday evening only to be seized by an unreasonable yearning.

I feel Klaus’s eyes on me. When I look over at him, I see a myriad of unexpressed emotions flit through his eyes.

There’s so much I want to say to him. Like how kissing him feels like the most natural thing in the world. And how when he holds me in his arms, it feels like a home I never want to leave.

I feel like I’m feeling too much, too soon.

I look away from him as the car is parked in front of the mansion.

There’s a beautiful, statuesque woman standing in front of the entrance. She’s...stunning. It feels like I’m looking at a marble sculpture of a goddess. Her long brown curls fall over one shoulder gracefully. Her smile widens when we step out of the car.

This is Vera Reznikova, Klaus's friend.

She hurries down the marble steps to greet us.

An unnamed emotion stabs me in the center of my stomach. Inky possessiveness wraps around my heart, squeezing it until I barely recognize the thoughts in my own head.

I take a deep breath. My lungs fill with the scent of eucalyptus and tropical flowers. Klaus told me that his friend kept a greenhouse, but I didn’t expect it to smell like spring in the middle of winter.

“Hello, Klaus,” she says, grinning at him.

“Vera.” He nods.

“And who do we have here?” she asks, turning toward the kids.

James glances down at his feet, seized by sudden shyness. Rosalie gives Vera a stiff smile.