Chapter 186

Kaia

Chloe arrived at nine in the morning with three dresses over one arm, a makeup case in the other hand, and a face that said she had been crying in the car and had no intention of discussing it.

“Right,” she said, in Liam’s doorway. “Where’s the good light in this house?”

There wasn’t any. It was the middle of winter and Liam’s house faced the wrong way. She marched through every room anyway, frowning, and settled on the back bedroom, which got the sun for an hour in the late morning if there was any sun, and pushed the bed against the wall and dragged the dressing table under the window, and stood back with her hands on her hips.

“It’ll do,” she said. “Sit.”

I sat.

She didn’t say anything about Abby. Not at first. She laid out the three dresses on the bed, one after another, smoothing them flat with quick hands. A cream wool one with long sleeves. A pale gray silk that I knew was hers, because I had seen her wear it at the reception. A