Magda stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror, the diamonds at her throat feeling more like a leash than a luxury.
Her raven-black bob was perfectly coiffed. Her obsidian eyes were lined with surgical precision. She looked flawless—like a painting hung in a museum no one visited anymore.
Yet she felt like a ghost in her own home.
The door clicked shut. Valentin.
She didn't turn. She didn't have to. She could smell his arrogance.
"What is wrong with you, Valentin?" she asked, her voice trembling low, the kind that came before a landslide. "Why are you doing this to me? Why are you dragging our name through the gutter?"
Valentin didn't answer.
She heard the clink of glass. He was pouring a drink.
Magda spun around.
"I have given you everything!" she shouted. "I have the beauty, the brains, the body that most men in this city would kill for! And yet you bring her here? A second wife? A commoner? Our enemy's pregnant widow?"
