Marguerite Voss didn't knock.
She never knocked. She simply appeared — silk blouse pressed to geometric perfection, silver hair swept back like a crown she no longer needed to wear, dark eyes that missed absolutely nothing. She walked into the Hamptons drawing room at seven in the morning like she owned it.
She did, technically.
I was on the settee with my feet tucked under me, both hands wrapped around a mug of decaf that was a poor substitute for the real thing, watching the Atlantic turn gold through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Eight months pregnant, perpetually too warm, perpetually too awake at hours that should be illegal.
Damian was in the shower. I could hear the faint sound of water through the ceiling above us.
Marguerite sat down across from me without being invited, crossed her ankles, and looked at my stomach with an expression I still hadn't learned to decode. Not cold. Not warm. Something older than both of those things.
