CHAPTER 1: THE CUT
Lily did not understand cruelty.
She only understood tone.
The woman in white spoke softly, but something in her voice made Lily’s fingers tighten around the worn ear of her stuffed bunny.
“Yes,” Sloane continued, tilting her head as if inspecting a decorative object. “You don’t belong here, do you?”
Lily shook her head slightly, unsure if that was the correct answer.
Across the room, Nora saw it happening.
Her body froze before her mind caught up.
Then she moved.
Fast.
Too fast for a servant who was supposed to be invisible.
“Miss Fairchild—please—”
But she was too late.
Sloane’s smile widened as she reached out, brushing her fingers through Lily’s curls.
“Oh, these won’t do,” she said lightly. “Not for tonight.”
And then—
A sharp metallic sound.
A single, careless snip.
Lily flinched.
A lock of her curls fell to the marble floor.
The room inhaled.
No one intervened.
No one spoke.
Nora dropped the tray.
Champagne glasses shattered around her feet as she rushed forward, pulling Lily into her arms.
“Don’t touch her!” Nora cried, her voice breaking for the first time in two years of silence.
Sloane straightened, unfazed.
“Oh, relax,” she said. “It’s just hair. It grows back.”
Lily began to cry then—soft, confused sobs buried into her mother’s shoulder.
And still—
No one stopped Sloane.
No one challenged her.
May you like
Until the doors opened.
And Caleb Whitmore walked in.
