“Since your Napa trip,” she said quietly. “Maybe before that. It got worse when she realized the girls were scared to tell you.”
Napa had been eight weeks earlier.
Eight weeks of dinners, ring fittings, wedding menus, and goodnight kisses. Eight weeks of my daughters learning how to shrink themselves inside a house I paid for.
I felt heat climb up my neck. Not rage first. Shame.
Vanessa stepped toward me. “You are seriously taking her word over mine?”
Lily pointed at the phone. “There’s more.”
She said it flat, like she’d run out of energy for begging.
I scrolled through the file names. Twelve recordings. Different dates. Different lengths. All made in the same room, around the same time of day.
I hit the next one.
“Sit up straight.”
A chair scraped.
“If your dad marries me, this house is going to have rules. And the maid isn’t going to save you.”
