chapter 9
The breath I had trapped in my chest eased by inches.
I had been so certain I was alone with my memories that the possibility of someone else carrying fractures from another timeline had never occurred to me. But no—this was not that. Just a strange turn of phrase. Just my nerves clawing at shadows.
Still, I studied her more carefully.
“Why are you here?”
“Because my son is not thinking clearly.”
“That isn’t new.”
A flicker, almost a smile. Then gone.
“She’s become… important to him in a way that concerns me.” Mrs. Shaw set down her cup. “Rose was brought into the Song family five years ago. Beautiful, charming, helpless at exactly the right moments. Since then, she has managed to create friction in every room she enters while looking as though she can barely hold herself together.”
I said nothing.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not.”
Mrs. Shaw went still. “Then let me be blunt. I don’t care who Ethan sleeps with. I care who has access to him. Who influences him. Who benefits from his blind spots.” Her voice sharpened. “And that girl has found one.”
In my last life, I had thought Mrs. Shaw disliked Rose because she was poor, or because she wasn’t a suitable match, or because powerful women love to despise the younger pretty ones who threaten their plans.
Now I saw something else in her face.
Fear.
Not for her pride.
For her son.