Rosette nodded as if that mattered.
As if beauty had ever made a locked room less locked.
She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
The shower was already waiting.
In the Olsen house, even rebellion had a schedule waiting behind it.
Warm water hit her shoulders minutes later, washing away perfume, smoke, sweat, and the last traces of a night she could barely remember. Rosette stood beneath it with both palms pressed against the marble wall, head bowed, letting the water beat against the ache behind her eyes.
Damon Aristotle.
She did not know him.
She knew of him the way people like her knew of people like him: names passed through rooms, reputations wrapped in money, sons of powerful men who appeared in society pages beside yachts, charity dinners, and women who smiled like they had been chosen.
Suitable match.
She hated the phrase.
It sounded like something one said about fabric, not a future.
By the time she stepped out, her bedroom had been invaded.
Not by strangers. Never strangers. The Olsen estate did not allow disorder unless Rosette created it herself.
Two wardrobe assistants moved through her walk-in closet with quiet efficiency. A breakfast tray had appeared on one bedside table. Coffee. Water. Toast. Fruit she would ignore. A green juice she would hate. Someone had drawn the curtains wider, letting more afternoon light into the room.
Rosette stood at the closet entrance wrapped in a robe and watched them touch her life.
“Who authorized the invasion?”
Elara, seated near the vanity, turned calmly. “I did.”
Rosette narrowed her eyes.
“Traitor.”
“Drink your water.”
“I prefer betrayal with coffee.”
“Water first.”
Rosette took the glass from the tray and drank half of it while glaring at her mother over the rim.
Elara’s mouth curved.
The kind that made Rosette want to crawl back onto the bed and put her head on her mother’s lap like nothing in the world could touch them there.
But the world always touched.