I slept in what had once been the east drawing room because I refused to install an electric chairlift along the curving marble staircase where my grandfather had once walked down to greet ambassadors. Pride is an extraordinarily stubborn narcotic; even when your legs are withered to the bone beneath a cashmere throw, your ego insists on dying in the style to which it was accustomed.
“Dominic needs the deed release for the south harbor property by noon,” **Arya Bellini** said.
She was sitting at the mahogany vanity across from my hospital-grade bed, applying lipstick in the oval mirror. Crimson. The exact, predatory red she wore whenever she had to sit across from city zoning commissioners or bank directors. On her left ring finger, the five-carat family solitaire—my mother’s stone—caught the pale morning light.
“Which property?” I asked. My voice sounded gravelly, rusted from twelve hours of silence.
“**Pier Nineteen**.”
I watched her profile in the glass. Her posture was razor-straight, her dark hair cut into an architectural bob that grazed her collarbone. For five years, we had been the city’s golden couple—the builder and the heiress, photographed at charity galas and harbor ribbon-cuttings.
“Tell Dominic to bring the paperwork here,” I said. “He can climb the three steps up the porch.”
