The invitation arrived on her phone just after lunch, a single line from Adrian: East wing guest room. Twenty minutes. Wear nothing beneath. Elena stared at the screen, her pulse quickening. She was standing in the solarium of the Voss mansion, surrounded by winter-bare rosebushes and the muted sounds of the household staff preparing for another dreary charity dinner. Marcus was somewhere in the west wing, shut in his study with a bottle of bourbon and a stack of reports he had been pretending to read for weeks.

Twenty minutes. She had learned not to question the timing or the risk. Adrian Cross moved through the world with the certainty of a man who believed nothing could touch him, and his confidence was a contagion she had long since stopped trying to resist.