Chapter 2
Lily’s voice shook, but now that the first words had escaped, the others seemed to crowd behind them.
“I told her not to. She said it wasn’t Mom’s room anymore.”
Vivian closed her eyes briefly, not in sorrow but irritation, as if Lily had chosen the most inconvenient version of the truth.
Ethan looked at the hallway behind Vivian. The mansion stretched beyond her: formal dining room, gallery wall, staircase, guest wing, a life designed to impress people who never stayed long enough to hear silence.
“How long?” Ethan asked.
Vivian’s chin lifted. “You need to calm down.”
“How long has she been eating on the floor?”
“That is a disgusting way to phrase it.”
“Good. Be disgusted.”
Lily shifted again, and Ethan softened his grip. “Did this happen before?”
She did not answer.
That was answer enough to gut him.
Vivian said, “She is manipulating you.”
Ethan stared at her.
The words landed in the room with a familiar shape. He had heard them before, though not aimed at Lily. Employees used them when tenants complained. Principals used them when children without rich parents cried too loudly. His own father used them whenever Ethan’s mother objected to his affairs. Manipulating. Dramatic. Sensitive. Difficult. Words people used when cruelty needed better lighting.
Lily pulled away just enough to look up at him.
“I tried to call you,” she said.
His heart stopped in a new way.
“My phone was dead.”
“No.” Lily shook her head. Tears clung to her lashes. “Before. Last week. And the week before. She said you were busy. She said if I bothered you during the Chicago deal, you’d send me away to the clinic again.”
The clinic.
Ethan turned toward Vivian slowly.
Vivian’s face hardened. “She needed help.”
“She had panic attacks after her mother died.”
“She locked herself in a pantry for six hours.”
“She was fifteen.”
“She was unstable.”
Ethan felt Lily go rigid in his arms.
There were sentences that did not just hurt a person. They confirmed every fear that person had been trying to survive.
He looked down at Lily. “You are not unstable.”
Her face crumpled.
Vivian gave a sharp breath. “Of course. Reward the performance.”
The quiet that followed had weight.
Even the kitchen seemed to hold still.
Ethan reached for his phone. His hand went to his coat pocket, then stopped. He realized Vivian was watching the movement too closely.
Another small hook.
He changed course and picked Lily up.
She made a startled sound. “Dad—”
“I’ve got you.”
“I can stand.”
“I know.”
He carried her to the leather bench beside the breakfast nook, away from the bowl, away from Vivian, away from the center of the room where she had been made into an object. Lily’s arms went around his neck after a hesitant second. That hesitation hurt him almost as much as the bowl.
He set her down gently and removed his suit jacket, placing it around her shoulders.
Vivian said, “Ethan, you’re making this theatrical.”
“No,” he said. “You did that with the bowl.”
He took his phone out now and unlocked it.
Vivian’s eyes sharpened. “Who are you calling?”
“Dr. Patel.”
Lily looked up quickly. “No.”
Ethan froze.
May you like
There was real fear in her voice.
“Not the clinic,” she said. “Please.”
