I've been into tarot since I was a kid.

It started around the same time I realized I noticed things other people didn't. The cards never told me the future—not exactly. But they had a way of mapping what I already felt. Like holding a mirror up to the mess inside my head and saying, "See? This is what's eating you."

Lucky sensed my mood before I did. He trotted over and pressed his body against my leg, warm and solid. I scratched behind his ears, then reached for my deck.

Two cards.

The Tower. Upright.

Death. Reversed.

I stared at them for a long time.

The Tower meant destruction. Something was going to fall apart—fast, violent, without warning. The kind of collapse you can't rebuild from. Not easily.

And Death reversed? Endings that refuse to end. Things that should be over but keep dragging on, rotting, festering.

The air in the house felt thick. Sticky. Like the walls were leaning in.

I needed to get out.

* * *

I drove with no destination. Windows down, radio off. Just the hum of the engine and the wind and my own thoughts chasing each other in circles.

I ended up in front of our company building. Velarion. The logo shimmered on the plaza fountain, enormous and unmissable. I sat in the car, engine idling, staring up at the glass tower like it might give me answers.

Please let Daniel be okay. If something's wrong, let him tell me. Let him lean on me. I'll be right here. I'll always be right here.

I called Beth.

Beth was my college roommate. She'd been a scrappy, overachieving econ major with zero connections and a chip on her shoulder. I'd convinced my mother to hire her. Now she was VP of Human Resources—one of the most powerful people in the company. Smart, loyal, sharp as a blade.

"Hey, is everything okay at the company?" I asked, trying to keep my voice casual. "Anything going on I should know about?"

"Going on?" She laughed. "You mean besides smashing quarterly records? Claire, we just had the best Q3 in company history. Daniel's on a warpath. In a good way."

I exhaled. "Okay. Good. That's good."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just... I was in the neighborhood. Thought I'd stop by."

"Get up here, then. I'll give you the tour. Daniel's floor is basically a modeling agency at this point. Every assistant they hire is more attractive than the last."

A flicker of something ugly stirred in my gut.

I killed it fast. This was Daniel. The man who didn't even flinch when Monica Voss—literally voted the most beautiful woman on Earth by three different magazines—publicly announced she was going to "win him over." He hadn't looked at her once.

"Hey, Beth?" I asked, keeping my tone light. "Did the secretary pool hire anyone new recently?"

"Nope. Same team as last month. Why?"

I heard the disbelief creeping into her voice. "Wait. Are you—Claire Ashford, former Miss America at nineteen—feeling insecure? About Daniel? The man who has your face as his phone wallpaper, his computer wallpaper, and—I'm pretty sure—tattooed on the inside of his eyelids?"

She wasn't done.

"That man doesn't see gender, Claire. He sees you, and he sees everybody else. That's it. There's no category for 'other women.' There's just 'not Claire.'"

I shook my head at myself. She was right. Of course she was right.

* * *

I went up to Daniel's floor anyway.

His office door was open. I walked in and looked around. Everything was the same as always—sleek, minimal, organized. And there, on the wall directly across from his desk, hung an enormous photograph of me. A candid shot from our honeymoon in Santorini, where I was laughing at something off-camera, wind in my hair, the Aegean Sea behind me.

He stared at this photo all day. Every day.

I shook my head. God, what was wrong with me? I was scaring myself over nothing.

I turned to leave—and that's when she appeared.

A woman. Carrying a tea tray. She walked toward me with quiet, measured steps and set the cup down gently on the side table.

"Mrs. Ashford, your tea."

Her voice was soft. Polite. Perfectly calibrated.

I looked at her face, and my blood went cold.

Eleanor Whitfield.

What was she doing on the nineteenth floor? This close to Daniel? Working in the secretary pool?

Eleanor Whitfield was the person Daniel hated most in this world.

When Daniel and I first got married, he came home one evening looking like someone had hollowed him out from the inside.

He barely said hello. Just dropped his briefcase by the door, walked to the couch, and sat there with his hands between his knees, staring at nothing.

"Daniel?"

"I saw her today." His voice was flat. Dead. "The daughter of the man who killed my parents."

My stomach dropped.

Daniel was seventeen when his father died on an operating table. It was supposed to be a routine surgery—something minor, something safe. But the lead surgeon had been drinking that day. A flask of vodka before scrubbing in. The kind of recklessness that should've ended his career years earlier. Instead, it ended Daniel's father's life.

His mother couldn't take it. Two weeks after the funeral, she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and never woke up.

Just like that, Daniel was alone. Seventeen years old. No parents. No money. No home—the house was seized for debts.

The surgeon who destroyed his family was Dr. Richard Whitfield.

And the woman who just served me tea was his daughter.

* * *

I sat next to him that night, my hand on his back, feeling the tension coiled in every muscle.

"She'd been my secretary for six months before I found out," he said. "Six months, Claire. I sat across from that face every day. And today I learned whose blood runs in her veins."

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"I had this moment—just a flash—where I wanted to put my hands around her throat and make her pay for what her father did. I wanted to squeeze until she couldn't breathe, the way my mother couldn't breathe when she realized she had nothing left to live for."

"Daniel..." I pulled him close, letting him bury his face in my shoulder.

"I know," he said, muffled. "I know. I didn't do it. I won't. But God, Claire, the rage... it's still there. It never really goes away."

I held him until his breathing slowed. Until the trembling stopped. Until his body finally surrendered to exhaustion, and he fell asleep right there on the couch, his head in my lap.

A few weeks later, I asked him how he was handling it.

"Better," he said. "I moved her to a different department. I can control my emotions now. It's fine."

"Why not just fire her?" I asked. It seemed like the obvious solution.

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Life throws things at you that you can't control. Things you hate. Things that disgust you. But a strong person doesn't run from them. A strong person learns to coexist with them. To let their presence make him sharper, not weaker."

I thought that was incredibly mature. Brave, even.

After that, Eleanor disappeared from our conversations entirely. I never saw her, never heard her name. She became a ghost—someone who existed in the building somewhere, far from Daniel's world and mine.

Until today.

Until she walked into his office with a tea tray and a voice like silk.

* * *

"Daniel's secretaries aren't scheduled to work today," I said to her, keeping my voice even. "Are they?"

Eleanor's eyes flickered—just barely—before she answered. "They're all on a business trip today, ma'am. I was called in to fill in temporarily."

I studied her face. Composed. Careful. Respectful in a way that felt rehearsed.

Daniel walked in before I could say anything else.

He passed Eleanor without looking at her. Not a glance. Not a flinch. His expression didn't change by even a fraction. She bowed her head slightly as he passed, deferential and small, and he didn't acknowledge it at all.

Then he saw me, and his whole face lit up.

"Claire!" He pulled me into a hug, lifting me slightly off the ground the way he always did. "What are you doing here? Has my one and only boss finally come to inspect my work?"

I swatted his arm and stepped back, smiling despite myself. I walked a few steps around his office with exaggerated authority. "Do I look like a lioness surveying her territory?"

"You look like a lioness who could eat me alive," he said, grinning. "And I'd thank you for it."

I let myself laugh. Then I turned back to him, more carefully.

"Daniel... why is Eleanor on this floor?"

A pause. Brief. Almost invisible.

"The secretary pool's been short-staffed lately. She comes up to help out once in a while."

I searched his face. "And you're okay with that? Having her around?"

"Claire bear." He took my hands. "Don't worry about me. I have complete control over my emotions now. She doesn't affect me at all."

I stepped into him, wrapping my arms around his waist. "My mom was right about you. You're strong. Disciplined. A natural leader. Thank you for making her company better than she ever dreamed."

He kissed my hair softly. "Everything for you, my dear. Everything I do is for you."

I believed him.

God help me, I believed every word.

Two weeks later, I found a bakery.

It was one of those hidden gems—tucked behind a florist on a side street in Silver Lake, no sign out front, just a chalkboard in the window that said GOOD THINGS INSIDE. I'd stumbled across it while walking Lucky, and their signature caramel muffins were, no exaggeration, the best thing I'd ever put in my mouth.

I bought a box. Daniel loved caramel. He'd eat these standing up, moaning, licking crumbs off his fingers like a little kid. I couldn't wait to see his face.

I wanted to surprise him. So instead of calling ahead, I used my keycard for the CEO's private elevator. No one would know I was coming.

The elevator doors opened on the top floor. Quiet. Empty. The assistants' desks were vacant—must've been a meeting somewhere. I walked down the hall toward his office, box of muffins in hand, feeling almost giddy.

I knocked.

"I SAID I don't want to be DISTURBED. Get OUT!"

The voice that came through the door was Daniel's. But it wasn't any Daniel I'd ever heard. It was brutal. Raw. The voice of a man who could destroy you with a word and not lose sleep over it.

I flinched so hard I almost dropped the muffins.

"Daniel—it's me."

A beat of silence.

Then the electronic lock clicked, and the door swung open.

The curtains were drawn. The office was dim, backlit by a pale wash of sunlight through the fabric. Daniel stood with his back to the window, and with the light behind him, I couldn't read his face. Something about the shadows made the room feel smaller. Closer. Wrong.

I stopped a few feet from him. My body wouldn't go any farther.

Then he stepped forward, and the light caught his features, and he was smiling. Just Daniel. My Daniel.

"Hey, babe. What brings you here?"

My pulse was still hammering. "You scared me. What was that?"

He waved it off. "Video conference. Some idiot from the Tokyo office. I'm sorry—I didn't know it was you."

"Oh." I laughed a little, embarrassed. "I didn't realize you were in a meeting."

"I'm not anymore." He glanced back at his laptop. "Taking twenty. Come here."

I held up the bakery box. "I brought you something."

He opened it, and I watched his face as he took a bite of the caramel muffin. He chewed slowly. His expression was... off. Not bad, exactly. But not right either. Like he was performing enjoyment rather than feeling it.

"Good," he said. His voice sounded tight, pressed down. "Really good. Thank you, babe."

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Just tired. It's been a rough week."

Guilt tugged at me. He worked so hard, and here I was barging in unannounced. "I'll let you get back to it. Just come home early tonight, okay?"

"Okay." He kissed my forehead. "Next time, call first. I'll be waiting by the elevator."

I turned to leave. At the door, I glanced back.

His face had changed.

I'd seen Daniel angry. I'd seen him sad, stressed, exhausted. But this was something else. Something I'd never seen before and couldn't name. It was there for maybe half a second—a flicker behind his eyes, a tightness around his mouth—and then it was gone, replaced by his usual easy smile when he noticed me looking.

"Love you," he called.

"Love you too."

I walked to the elevator. Pressed the button. Waited.

Then something pulled me back.

Call it instinct. Call it my Virgo brain refusing to let go. Call it whatever you want. But my feet turned around on their own, and I walked back down the hallway toward his office.

I turned the corner just in time to see a woman step out of his door.

Eleanor.

She was smoothing a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun. Her heels clicked against the marble floor—sharp, rhythmic, unhurried. There was something about the way she moved. Something soft. Languid. Like a woman who had just been touched.

I pressed myself against the wall, heart slamming.

She'd gone in. And come out. In the two minutes since I'd left.

My mind flashed to Daniel's desk.

It was big enough. More than big enough.

Big enough to hide a person underneath.

Big enough for a lot of things.

I stood there, back against the cold wall, listening to the click-click-click of Eleanor's heels fading down the hall.

And I couldn't breathe.