She tapped her acrylic nails quickly on the glass screen of her phone.

“Victoria told you not to come back until Monday.

She has real estate investors coming tonight from northern Virginia.”

“Dad died eleven days ago, Chloe.”

“And life has to keep moving for the rest of us,” she said.

She looked down at my dusty combat boots and dragged out the ends of her words.

“If you need food, go around through the pantry door and stay out of sight in the kitchen.

Brandon’s career depends on tonight.”

I picked up my bag and went down the side hallway toward the formal dining room.

The thick dark wool carpet muffled my steps as I stopped in the shadow of the carved cypress archway.

Inside the dining room, thirty people sat under the crystal chandelier.

At the head of the long mahogany table sat Victoria in a dark velvet jacket, turning an empty diamond ring setting on her right ring finger.

Her fingers moved over the bare gold prongs where her three-carat stone used to sit.

Next to her sat Brandon, Chloe’s fiancé, leaning over his silver dinner plate toward a broad-shouldered man in a charcoal suit.