Chapter 79

Rose huddled in the corner booth of Café Obscura, a dingy establishment where celebrities went to be forgotten, not spotted. The hood of her oversized sweatshirt cast shadows across her face as she clutched a chipped mug of lukewarm coffee. Gone were the designer clothes and perfect makeup that had been her armor for so long.

Three weeks had passed since Camille’s dramatic resurrection at the Phoenix Gala. Three weeks of hiding from reporters, dodging process servers, and watching her carefully constructed world crumble into dust. Each day brought new humiliations as her business partners abandoned her, her accounts were frozen, and her reputation dissolved in a flurry of scandalous headlines.

The bell above the café door jingled. Rose didn’t look up, having learned not to make eye contact with anyone. But then a shadow fell across her table, and she sensed someone sliding into the seat opposite her.

“Ms. Lewis, I presume?” A deep voice with a hint of old money in