Every one of those gestures, the preserved photographs, the tolerated grief, the graveside flowers, had been a calculation, a performance of the exact stepmother a grieving widower would fall in love with, designed to disarm him completely.

Sarah had studied what Marcus needed, and she had become it, and he had never once suspected that the woman who so gently honored his dead wife was, the entire time, conducting a campaign against his living daughter.

Chapter 5 — Somewhere Else

“That someday,” Lily whispered, in answer to his question, “you’ll understand I need to live somewhere else.”

Marcus swallowed.

“Where, sweetheart?”