had switched rental cars at the airport because the first smelled like smoke.

I had watched the employee bring our replacement directly from a cleaning bay.

Back upstairs, I placed the earring on the bathroom counter.

Daniel returned shortly after three, smelling not like eucalyptus oil or massage lotion but cedar cologne and rain.

He saw the earring immediately.

The smallest pause.

Then a laugh.

“You went through the car?”

“The valet found it.”

“So it belonged to someone who rented it before us.”

“The car had just been cleaned.”

“Mara.”

“Whose is it?”

He loosened his watch and placed it beside the sink.

“You came here determined to ruin this.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer I’m giving when you’re behaving like this.”

There it was—that familiar trick.

My question vanished, replaced by my tone.

I looked at him through the mirror.

“Is there someone else?”

His face hardened.

“You need air.”

I almost laughed.

“What I need is for you to tell the truth.”

Outside, the first hard gust slammed rain against the windows.

Daniel walked toward the terrace doors.

“Five minutes outside.

Clear your head.

Then we can talk like adults.”

A burgundy scarf I’d left over the patio chair snapped in the wind.

I stepped out to grab it.

The door clicked behind me.

I turned.

Daniel stood inside, one hand on the lock.

“Very funny.

Open it.”

He didn’t.

The bedroom door opened behind him.

A woman stepped into view.

She wore my burgundy coat.

For a second, my mind rejected the image.

Then I recognized her.

Lena Cross.

Daniel’s outside consultant.

She had joined two client dinners the previous autumn.

Once, after wine, she told me Daniel was “dangerously persuasive” and smiled like the sentence belonged to both of them.

I had forgotten that until now.

“Daniel.”

My voice barely carried through the glass.

He crossed to the entry table, opened my handbag, and removed my key card.

Lena stood with her arms folded tightly across herself.

“Don’t do this,” she said.

I couldn’t hear her, but I could read her lips.

Daniel handed her the card.

“Dinner is at seven fifteen.”

Then he picked up my phone.

My phone.

That was when the fear changed shape.

This was not an affair being exposed.

It was a plan already in motion.

I pounded the glass.

Daniel walked closer.

He raised his voice just enough for me to hear between the gusts.

“People remember what they see, Mara.”

Then he closed the curtain halfway and left.

Lena followed.

I was barefoot, wearing black trousers and a thin sweater.

Rain soaked through it within seconds.

The terrace stretched twelve feet from the wall to a waist-high glass barrier.

Beyond it, the cliffs disappeared into mist.

The ocean struck the rocks below with a force I could feel through the stone beneath my feet.

I tried the door repeatedly.

Locked.

I searched for something heavy enough to break the glass, then stopped myself.

The doors were thick hurricane-rated panels.

If the glass shattered unpredictably, the wind could turn fragments into blades.

The terrace furniture had already been secured with cables, except for one lantern that slid across the tiles with each gust.

I crouched near the wall.

That was when I noticed the amber light