Page 112 of What You left in Me

The scream hits the hall like a gunshot.

Ariane jerks up pulling up her jeans, her face turning white, lips parted like she’s the one caught bleeding. I can feel her shame.

“Fuck,” I snarl under my breath, stepping forward, but the girl stumbles back, her tray clattering to the floor, silverware scattering like shrapnel.

Her eyes are wild.Terrified. But triumphant. She knows what she saw, and worse, she knows what it means.

“Wait,” Ariane says, voice breaking, hand half-extended as she gets off the desk, but it’s too late. The maid is already running down the hall, screaming for anyone who’ll listen.

I drag a hand through my hair, fury spiking so hard I can taste blood. The door stands open, wide like a wound, the study no longer a sanctuary but a stage.

Chapter 34 – Ariane – The Slap Heard Around the Estate

By six o’clock I’ve changed my outfit three times like that will fix anything. Spoiler: it doesn’t. The closet looks like it’s been ransacked by a raccoon with seasonal depression, and I end up in a long-sleeved silk dress the color of wet violets. The sleeves matter. My wrists are still tender and bruised in a way that’s both awful and, God help me, intimate. I dab concealer over the faint shadows like I’m painting a crime scene. A swipe of lip balm over lips that still remember his mouth, and there, new face, same disaster.

I stand in front of the mirror and try on expressions. Calm. Daughterly. Not guilty. My reflection cycles through them like a malfunctioning slideshow. I settle on neutral because panic reads poorly in candlelight.

Who am I kidding? My hands are shaking from before. The girl who saw us. I don’t know who she shared the information with, but I just know I need to be ready for battle. This was going to come. Sooner or later. I was fucking my step-brother like it wasn’t a big deal.

Walking down the corridor feels like walking to the witness stand. I count floorboards to steady myself: eleven to the landing, eight around the turn, fifteen to the dining room. The house smells like rosemary and lemon and trouble. My chest is tight enough to make breathing a part-time job.

The dining room is already dressed, candles, gleaming silver, linen napkins folded like crown shapes (which feels on-the-nose even for us). Richard sits at the head of the table, pale but upright, cardigan like a flag of surrender thrown over a dressshirt he didn’t button himself. He looks… small. It makes my throat burn.

Mom is beside him, posture perfect, jewelry gleaming like the moon if the moon were judgmental. She turns her head when I enter, a soft, rehearsed smile curving her mouth. It doesn’t reach her eyes. Her gaze sweeps over me, top to bottom the way a metal detector sweeps a guilty beach.

Finn stands near the sideboard pouring wine he isn’t drinking. He looks like he always does in this house, expensive and restless, a storm in cufflinks. When our eyes catch, mine snag and stick for one reckless second. Then I look away, because I’m not completely untrainable.

“Darling,” Eleanor says, voice sugar-dusted. “You made it.”

Translation: I expected you might run.

“Of course,” I say, and pull out my chair. If I sit very straight and pretend very hard, maybe I can confuse my entire nervous system into thinking this is normal.

The maid, Lydia tonight, small and tight-lipped, knuckles white around the soup tureen, won’t look at me. My stomach dips. I press my napkin into my lap and tell my hands to behave themselves.

Richard clears his throat. “We, ah… Eleanor thinks I should try a short walk tomorrow again. To the lake.” He says it like it’s Everest. It might as well be.

“That’s wonderful,” I say too fast, too bright. “You’ll love that.”

His mouth tries to smile. “We’ll see.”

Finn sets a glass by my plate. His fingers brush the stem and my pulse fusses. He doesn’t look at me, which somehowfeels more like looking. He sits. The chair leg whispers against the carpet, small and ominous.

We start with soup. Tomato bisque, the color of guilt. Lydia’s hands tremble when she ladles mine, a faint shiver that makes a ripple across red. She still won’t meet my eyes. The tiny hairs on my arms rise one by one like they got the memo before I did.

Mom notices. Of course she does. She notices everything; it’s her superpower and her curse. Her gaze flicks to Lydia, lingers a beat too long, then returns to me with the softest, and almost deceitful curiosity.

“How was your day?” Eleanor asks, spearing a piece of salad she has no intention of eating. “You were… out.”

I sip my soup, try not to choke on a tomato seed and a lie. “Coffee with a book.”

“Mm,” she says, a sound that meansI will put that on a shelf and knock it down later.“I do wish you’d spend more time at home while Richard recovers. Appearances matter.”

Finn’s jaw goes iron. He doesn’t speak, but I can hear his response anyway:Stop with appearances already.I swallow and reach for water. My hand bumps my wineglass, which tinkles a warning.

“It was just a few hours,” I say. “I needed some air.”

“Some people in this house,” Eleanor says, almost lightly, “have been forgetting their duties.”