Chapter 9 #3
“If it wasn’t for you meddling kids,” I giggle.
Theo side eyes me, but I can tell he wants to laugh too.
It’s curious to me how this didn’t come up in court. How Theo is only just now learning of this. It’s so blatantly obvious. Why didn’t Peter himself tell Theo?
A more concerning thought creeps in. What if he didn’t tell him because he was the one using them?
I don’t say it out loud. I can’t imagine that Theo isn’t considering the same, but if it’s true—if Peter was really the one to blame… well, that fucks everything either of us has ever thought about any of this.
We work for what feels like hours digging through every scrap of paper imaginable when there is a soft knock at the door just before it creaks open.
The smell hits me before she even rounds the corner—rich, buttery, unmistakably filled with dairy, because nothing that smells so delicious has ever not had cheese in it.
My stomach flips in anticipation and dread all at once.
When Tillie appears, she’s gripping a silver tray with both hands.
Her eyes dart between us like we might swat the food from her arms if she moves too fast.
“I, um…” she begins, so quietly I almost don’t hear it over her footsteps. “The kitchen thought you might like a little something while you… you talk. Or sit. Or—anyway. It’s gougères. Cheese puffs. Still warm.”
She lifts the lid with a shaky flourish, revealing perfectly golden mounds, flaky and soft, their centers visibly oozing with some kind of sharp, velvety cheese. The heat radiating off them smacks me square in the face. They smell like heaven.
God, I want to say yes.
Instead, I press my hand gently to my stomach like a silent apology. “They look amazing,” I say, and I mean it. “But I can’t. Dairy and I… we’ve had a falling out.”
Theo clears his throat next to me. “Same here. It’s mutual.”
The maid seems affronted, clearly caught off guard. “Oh. I—okay. That’s… totally fine.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, trying to soften the blow. “They’re perfect. Really.”
She hesitates, looking like she’s debating whether to insist. Then she gives a tiny, embarrassed curtsy—yes, a curtsy—and scurries off, the tray trembling slightly in her hands.
I watch her go with a pang of guilt.
Theo leans closer, “I think you just broke her heart.”
“I think I just broke mine,” I whisper back, eyes lingering on the last golden puff before it disappears around the corner.
My stomach growls.
He looks at me with mock sympathy. “You want me to sneak you one later? I’ll even personally ensure it doesn’t end in digestive betrayal.
Full-service experience. I know where Evelyn keeps the stash of dairy pills.
Silver tin, second shelf in the guest bath, tucked behind a box of individually wrapped soap petals, next to the monogrammed face towels. ”
“Is that also part of the classified intel you charmed her into giving you access to?” I look at him, forcing my face to look unamused.
“Perhaps,” he says, lip quirking at the corner.
I bump my shoulder against his, letting it linger just a second too long and smiling despite myself. I can’t tell if he’s joking. “Don’t tempt me.”
Something about him offering me a cheese puff like it’s a goddamn truce with whatever tension has been humming between us makes my chest feel funny.
He looks at me then, and something in his expression flickers.
Not teasing. Not smug. Just… soft. Like he’s trying to memorize the way I’m looking at him or maybe trying not to say something that would remind us both just how close we’ve come to something…
something before. How it felt. How easily it could happen again. If we let it.
I should say something. Something snarky. Something safe. But the words get tangled somewhere between my throat and my mouth.
And for just one unguarded second I let myself look at him too. Not as the man who drives me insane. Not as the grumpy bastard I used to have to fight myself tooth and nail to keep from falling into bed with. Just… him.
The man who notices when my fingers are cold.
Who doesn’t hesitate to defend me when Baryn turns into a crass asshole.
Who makes my drink without asking how I take it, because he remembers—from god knows when.
Who takes one of my closest friends blurting out my deepest fantasies in front of a room full of people in stride, deflects on my behalf, then cracks a joke about it later just to make me laugh instead of spiral… because he somehow seems to know me.
And I hate it—remembering what it felt like to really be known. By Laurel. And how I haven’t had that since. But sometimes, in moments like this, I think that if I were ever capable of letting someone in like that again… it could easily be him.
Things like how she knew the difference between my real laugh and the one I use when I’m performing. That I used to pretend I was invisible during family dinners because being looked at meant being evaluated—and I was always found lacking.
She knew I couldn’t walk into a place without mapping out the exits. That I rehearse conversations before I have them, and then hate myself for not sticking to the script.
She knew I don’t believe in unconditional love. Not really. Not for me. Not outside of her.
I think the difference with Theo is that I wouldn’t have to tell him those things. He’d just… know. He notices everything, even the stuff I don’t say out loud.
It’s so disarming.
My stomach does that aggressively unhelpful thing it does sometimes when he’s not being a smart ass. When he’s just careful and unexpectedly gentle in ways that undo me a little.
Without thinking, I reach for the urn necklace resting just below my collarbone and give it a violent little shake—just enough to make the ashes inside jostle. Immature? Maybe. Therapeutic? Weirdly, yes.
But it’s what I do when I’m mad at her—for being dead, mostly. For not being here to see the way I’m unraveling in real time. Sure, I’ve got Calla, Serena, and Emily. But they’re not Laurel. No one could ever be.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Theo glance over. He doesn’t say anything, just clocks the movement, cocks his head slightly like he’s trying to decide if I’ve finally lost it, then hesitantly goes back to his stack of papers.
We don’t speak for a beat, just long enough for the room to settle again, paper rustling under our fingers, the air thick with whatever it is we’re both pretending not to feel. I let my focus drift back to the files, flipping through one more stack—and then I freeze.
A folder, thicker than the others, a red rubber band wrapped tightly around it.
I snap the band trying to unwrap it.
“Careful.” He crosses the space between us and gently takes my hand. His thumb moves over the reddening mark. “You okay?”
“It just snapped.” I mean for it to come out nonchalant, but my voice is weaker than I expect, and the contact—his skin on mine for the second time today, warm and unhurried—sends my brain into a static buzz.
He’s just being kind. That’s all it is. Still, it takes more effort than I’d like to keep my hand steady in his.
I force myself to turn back to the file, not breathing as I skim the first few lines, something deep in my gut telling me that this might be what we need to point us in the right direction.
“Fucking shit,” I breathe.
Theo shifts closer, “What?”
“Victoria was writing a memoir. From the looks of it, a fucking tell-all.” I shove the pages toward him. “She was going to sell it.”
The folder isn’t just a memoir draft. It’s a bomb Victoria was preparing to drop on her own family.
The early pages detail the Mayfair wealth, specifically a large, undocumented payout made in the late ‘90s, hidden under the guise of a charitable donation that never actually existed. I guess Theo didn’t lie about that part.
Victoria’s own handwriting is scrawled in the margins: Thomas. But there seems to be pages missing after that.
Further in, she outlines Henry’s stranglehold over the family’s assets, hinting at how deeply entrenched he was at laundering money and tossing it around to cover the family’s past mistakes.
References to manipulated records, backdated financial statements, and one unnerving mention of a check written to a coroner with only a date.
Another page claims Thomas paid off a local detective after an incident involving one of the groundskeepers went unreported.
There’s a vague mention of Katherine’s social club being used to funnel hush money under the table.
Even Nora’s name is circled in one spot, followed by a line that is somehow not shocking to me at all: microdoses psilocybin, has offered it to the grandchildren—and a separate note in tighter handwriting beneath it: Baryn—father unknown.
But it’s the final pages that are the most questionable—not polished drafts, but frantic, handwritten notes. No organization, no structure, just scrawled thoughts in the margins, entire sections crossed out or rewritten, like she couldn’t decide how much she was willing to say.
Theo’s jaw ticks. “Christ.”
I nod absently. “She named all the names.”
We exchange a look, the weight of the realization heavy between us.
Theo releases a quiet whistle. “This is no family history piece.”
Which means multiple people in this house had a reason to make sure it never saw the light of day.
It’s odd to me that Evelyn could have found this herself.
Gotten rid of it. Then again, she is elderly.
Maybe that’s why she wanted us to snoop around, to find it for her.
I can imagine she wouldn’t want anyone in the family to be the one to find it, especially not if she suspects one of them could have been behind all this.
Murdering Victoria. Murdering her husband. How would she know who to trust?
Then again, why does she think she can trust us?
I drop the page and scrub at my face. “I need a cigarette.”
Theo looks affronted. “You smoke?”
“God, no,” I reply.
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Always gotta crack a little jokey joke to diffuse the tension,” I say, shooting him with my very cool finger guns (no pun intended).