Chapter 3: The Morning After
I didn't wait for Liana's retort. I walked away, my spine straight, my steps measured despite the tremor in my hands hidden deep in the pockets of my lab coat. The echo of my heels on the marble was a declaration of war in the silent, dawn-lit hall.
I found a guest bathroom down a quieter corridor and locked the door behind me. Leaning against it, I finally allowed myself to breathe, the air shuddering out of me in a broken gasp. The face in the ornate mirror was a stranger's—pale, with eyes that were too dark, too old. A faint blush high on my cheeks was the only remaining evidence of the study's heat. I looked like I had survived a disaster.
I suppose I had.
Stripping off the ruined clothes, I balled them up and shoved them deep into the trash bin, burying them under clean towels. I wouldn't leave a trace. I scrubbed my skin under scalding water until it was pink and raw, trying to erase the memory of his hands, his weight, his scent. It was a futile effort. The violation felt like it had seeped into my bones, a permanent stain on my new beginning.
But as the water poured over me, the cold, hard kernel of my resolve only grew harder. I had not done this for pleasure. I had done it for power. I had done it for them.
Wrapped in a plush towel, I assessed my options. I couldn't walk out of the Sullivan mansion in a bathrobe. Stealing clothes from a guest room felt beneath me, a reminder of my previous powerlessness. Then I remembered the pool house. It was stocked with Sullivan-branded athletic wear for guests. It would have to do.
Dressed in soft grey sweatpants and a hoodie that swam on my frame, my damp hair pulled into a simple knot, I looked like a college student, not a woman who had just bargained with the devil. The anonymity was a relief.
I slipped out a side entrance, the morning air cool and sweet against my skin. The sprawling grounds of the estate were deserted. I walked with no particular destination, just putting distance between myself and the house, my mind racing.
What was my next move? Wait? Hope that a single night with Silas Sullivan had achieved its impossible goal? The odds were astronomically against it. I needed a plan B. I needed leverage, information. I needed to understand the battlefield better than I ever had before.
My feet carried me instinctively toward the one place that had always been a sanctuary in my previous life: the sprawling gardens behind the east wing. It was too early for the groundskeepers. I was alone with the meticulously trimmed hedges and the first songs of waking birds.
Rounding a corner of rose bushes, I stopped dead.
I wasn't alone.
Silas Sullivan was standing by the koi pond, his back to me.
He was dressed in dark, tailored trousers and a simple black sweater, a stark contrast to the disheveled, feverish man from last night. He held a cup of coffee in one hand, his posture relaxed yet radiating an unmistakable authority, as if he owned the very sunlight filtering through the trees. He looked completely in control. Completely normal.
My heart seized in my chest. Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through me. Did he remember? Had it all been a blur, or was every searing second etched into his memory as it was in mine?
I took a silent step backward, intending to melt back into the foliage.
The gravel crunched under my shoe.
He turned.
His stormy grey eyes, now clear and sharply focused, found me immediately. There was no surprise in them. No confusion. It was the assessing, penetrating gaze of a man who missed nothing. His eyes swept over my borrowed, ill-fitting clothes, my damp hair, my bare face. He took a slow sip of his coffee, his expression utterly unreadable.
I stood frozen, a rabbit caught in the gaze of a wolf. My mind scrambled for a script, a lie, a doctor's concerned inquiry about his health. Every word died in my throat.
He didn't speak. He simply looked at me, and the silence stretched, becoming a tangible thing, heavy with unasked questions and the ghost of what we had done.
Finally, his gaze dropped from my face to the koi pond, as if dismissing me. "The black one with the spot of gold," he said, his voice a low, calm baritone that held no trace of last night's rasp. "He's new. The others are trying to decide if he belongs."
The mundane observation was more terrifying than any accusation. It was a test.
I found my voice, though it was thinner than I wanted. "And do they?"
He glanced back at me, a flicker of something—interest, perhaps—in his depths. "He's stronger. He'll make them accept him." He paused, letting the metaphor hang in the air between us. "The house is full of… unexpected events after a party. I trust you found everything you needed last night, Dr. Vance?"
The use of my professional title was deliberate. A line drawn. But his eyes held mine, and in them, I saw a silent acknowledgment that went far beyond a doctor's care. He remembered. He remembered everything.
He was waiting to see what I would do with it. Would I simper? Would I blush and stutter? Would I try to use it as a clumsy weapon?
I straightened my shoulders, meeting his gaze with a coolness I didn't feel. "The situation was… adequately resolved," I said, matching his clinical tone. "I trust Mr. Kaelen is recovering as well."
A ghost of a smile, cold and devoid of warmth, touched his lips. It was there and gone in an instant. "He is. Thanks to your… swift and decisive referral." He knew I'd sent Liana. He knew everything. The realization was both terrifying and exhilarating.
He gave me one last, lingering look, a look that seemed to strip away the borrowed sweats and see the calculating creature beneath. Then he nodded, a minute, almost imperceptible gesture. A dismissal. But it felt like a recognition.
"The car will take you wherever you need to go," he said, turning back to his koi, the conversation clearly over.
I didn't thank him. I simply turned and walked away, my legs feeling like water. I had passed the first test. I hadn't played the victim. I hadn't played the seductress. I had stood my ground, and he had acknowledged it.
As I reached the driveway, a sleek black town car was already waiting, a uniformed driver standing by the open door. He didn't question my appearance. He simply nodded. "Dr. Vance."
I slid into the plush leather interior, the door closing with a soft, expensive thud. As the car pulled away from the mansion, I finally looked back.
Silas Sullivan was still standing by the pond, a solitary, powerful figure silhouetted against the morning sun. He wasn't watching the car. He was watching the koi, master of his domain, already several moves ahead in a game I was only just beginning to understand.
The battle lines were drawn. And I was no longer a pawn. I was a player who had just made her first, audacious move.