Page 13 of Trail of Betrayal
“Oh, yes. It’s almost…” Messy like you? Unorganized? Truthfully, I want to say neither. While Isabella knowingly slept with someone else’s boyfriend, I’m not nearly as upset with her as I am with Lawrence. So I let the word hang.
Luckily, she stays silent, so I pivot. “You know, I’m mortified.”
She laughs again, but this time the laugh dies halfway, a bird flying into a closed window. Her hand flattens against the marble, steadying herself. The mirror catches her face in triplicate—three versions of the same undoing. She looks down, and I keep working the stain.
We stand like that until she finally asks, “Why did you invite me tonight?”
I meet her eyes in the mirror. “Because I was curious.”
Her face says she doesn’t buy it, but her body language is all gratitude. “You could have just… I don’t know. Sent an email.”
“That’s not how I do things,” I say. I fold the towel and set it aside. “Besides, I wanted to see you in person. Get a sense of you.”
She’s silent. The bathroom is so acoustically perfect you can hear every drop of water hitting the marble basin.
“I’m not sure I passed the audition,” she says.
“Oh, I think you did.” I take a step closer, closing the distance so our shoulders almost touch. In the mirror, we’re matching: dark hair, sharp eyes, identical looks of composure barely holding. “You know what I see?” I ask.
She’s wary now, but she plays along. “What?”
I reach up, thumb against her collarbone, and smooth a wrinkle in the silk. “Someone who doesn’t flinch.”
She tilts her head, studying me. “Is that what you see in yourself?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “But lately, I see someone who’s let herself be made a fool of.”
Her breath catches—just enough for me to notice. “I don’t think you’re a fool.”
“No?” I press, my voice going soft. “Then what am I?”
She blinks. “Strong,” she says, but it’s not conviction—it’s hope.
I let the silence bloom between us. I know how to make someone crack.
I break eye contact, stare down at the stain, then up again. “You’re not the first,” I say. “And you won’t be the last. But you should know, I see everything. Every angle.”
She stiffens but keeps her voice flat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I lean in, whispering directly into her ear, “Lawrence is terrible at covering his tracks.”
Her whole body goes rigid. For a second, she’s about to pivot, deny, maybe even slap me. But she doesn’t. Instead, she looks back at me in the glass, the mask falling away.
“Are you going to tell him?” she asks.
I smile, gentle as poison. “He already knows I know.”
She nods once, and I see the wheels turning—survival instinct, pure and naked.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and this time it’s almost a plea. Her voice cracks on the last word, small and human, before she forces her posture straight again. The rawness returns beneath her eyes, impossible to hide.
“No, you’re not,” I reply. “But you will be.”
She opens her mouth, but I cut her off. “Don’t bother with the sob story. They're too cliché. ‘It just happened.’ ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ ‘We were just talking at first.’” I tick the lines off on my fingers, watching her shrink with each one. “You know what’s funny, Isabella? You’re better at this than he is. But you made one mistake.”
She swallows. “What?”
“You thought you could win. But you never asked what I was willing to lose.”
