The staff quarters were tucked away behind the kitchen, a sleek, minimalist suite that most people in the city would have sacrificed a limb to inhabit. To me, it was merely a tactical outpost.
I sat on the bed's firm mattress. The door was locked, the house silent. I reached into my coat lining and pulled out a leather notebook. It wasn't a diary of teenage dreams, but a ledger of old wounds.
I opened to a fresh page, my pen hovering for a second before I began to write.
Day One. I am inside. The glass is thinner than it looks.
I paused, a small, cold smile touching my lips. Seeing Georgia Lane, now the illustrious G. L. Sterling, recoil at the mention of Bradford had been more satisfying than any drug. The renowned writer had looked like a cornered animal in her own home.
I closed my eyes, letting the memories of Bradford University wash over me. It wasn't the Silent Quad Georgia wrote about in her books. For me, as Josette, it had been a place of noise and neon-lit rejection.
I remembered the way Anthony used to look at Georgia. Anthony, with his dark curls and the way he spoke about philosophy as if he were the only man who had ever truly understood the human condition. He had been the sun, and I had been a moon, trapped in a cold, distant orbit. I had followed him to every lecture, sat three rows behind him in every seminar, and memorized the way he tapped his pen against his chin when he was thinking.
And then there was Georgia.
Georgia hadn't even had to try. She had walked through those halls with an effortless, irritating brilliance. She had taken Anthony's attention without a second thought, discarding his devotion like a used bus ticket when she decided she was too good for the provincial life of a university town.
"You stole him," I whispered to the empty room. "You didn't even want him, not really. You just wanted to see if you could take him from the world."
It had taken years. Years of working menial jobs to save enough for the right clothes, the right hairstyle, and the right references. I had hunted Mrs. Higgins for months, learning the woman's route to the market. It was easy to play the part of a huge fan in desperate need of work, a girl with a hard luck story and a servant's heart.
I stood up and walked to the small vanity mirror. I began to unpin my hair, letting the mousy brown strands fall around my shoulders. I looked at my reflection, searching for the girl from the Bradford hallways. She was gone. In her place was a silent, efficient shadow.
"You built a house out of secrets, Georgia," I murmured, echoing the words I'd whispered to her at the bookstore under a different guise. "But you forgot that secrets need a floor. And I am underneath you now."
I moved to the window of my room, which looked out onto the hallway leading to the living area. Through the gap in the door, I saw him.
Noah.
He had emerged from his bunker ten minutes ago, looking for the espresso pods Georgia had mentioned. I watched him through the sliver of space. He was stunning, a mess of dark hair, broad shoulders, and a jawline that belonged on a statue. But I saw more than his looks. I saw the way he moved, with the entitled, sluggish grace of a parasite.
"Oh, Georgia," I smiled, my fingers trailing down the doorframe. "You have such a type. Beautiful, useless men who take and take until there's nothing left."
An idea, sharp and delicious, began to take root in my mind.
Initially, the plan had been simple, gather enough dirt on Georgia's past to tarnish her reputation. But Noah changed the math.
To take Georgia's money was one thing. To take her acclaim was another. But to take the man she was desperately trying to buy the love of? That was the ultimate audit.
Noah looked like he would be easy. A man like that didn't want a renowned writer who challenged him or made him feel small with her success. He wanted a mirror. He wanted someone who would tell him he was a genius while she made his coffee and massaged his ego. He wanted a fan.
"He's very handsome, isn't he?" I whispered, my eyes fixed on Noah as he tossed an empty pod into the trash with a frustrated sigh. "And he looks so… bored."
I sat back down at the desk and opened my ledger again. I began to sketch a map of the house, marking the locations of the cameras I'd spotted during the tour and the rooms that were off-limits.
I knew Georgia was suspicious. That "Josette?" whisper in the library had been a slip-up, a crack in Georgia's armor. But suspicion was not proof. In this glass house, everything was about perception. If I played the role of the humble, hardworking Lizzy, Georgia's suspicion would look like paranoia. It would look like the trauma Georgia was so famous for writing about was finally curdling her brain.
Noah would see it. The publicist would see it. The world would see G. L. Sterling lose her mind while her sweet, capable housekeeper kept the coffee hot and the secrets buried.
I'm going to take it all, Georgia, I wrote, the ink bleeding slightly into the expensive paper.