Chapter 5 Under The Same Roof

"You're sure about this?" Isla Voss asked, her brows drawn tight as she watched Georgia Vance tuck the last of her belongings into the sleek black SUV.

"As sure as anyone can be when they're walking straight into the lion's den," Georgia replied, her voice crisp, controlled masking the whirlwind inside her chest.

The mansion loomed in the distance like a sentinel of forgotten time Ashford Estate. Georgian architecture met modern menace. Stark lines of black stone and cold glass stared back at her, silent and unwelcoming. Its heavy iron gates groaned open with the kind of authority that could crush any second thoughts.

She should've been used to it by now. Weston Clay had always surrounded himself with grandeur, with danger polished like diamond just sharp enough to bleed.

Servants moved like ghosts, taking instructions from no one, yet operating with clockwork precision. Georgia stepped into the marble foyer, the polished floors cold beneath her boots. Her heels clicked like gunshots in a cathedral.

She was not welcome here. Not by the walls, not by the whispers. And definitely not by him.

He wasn't there to greet her. Of course, he wasn't.

"Where should we start, ma'am?" A soft-voiced housekeeper with snow-white hair appeared, hands clasped before her.

Georgia's eyes swept the foyer. The gilded staircase twisted like a serpent. The chandelier overhead sparkled with quiet threat.

"I'll take the East Wing," she said, shouldering her purse. "My things go there."

The housekeeper blinked, then nodded and vanished as quickly as she came.

What she didn't see what Georgia would never see was Weston watching from the upper landing, shadowed behind heavy curtains. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his black slacks, jaw tight, body unmoving.

She was here.

He hadn't thought she'd do it. Not really. Not without raising hell.

And yet, there she was, chin high, walking into his domain as if she belonged.

She didn't. Not anymore.

But God, she looked like she did.

Hours passed in silence.

Rooms were filled, boxes emptied. Her scent threaded itself through the corridors something soft and floral, with a bite of citrus. Unapologetically her.

Georgia leaned against the doorframe of what was now her bedroom, eyes scanning the rows of polished wood and pale silk. The fireplace had long gone cold.

Her skin prickled.

Someone was watching.

She turned. Empty hallway.

But the tension didn't leave.

The shadows felt too thick. The silence too loud.

"Coward," she muttered under her breath, knowing full well Weston could hear it if he was lurking as she suspected.

She wasn't going to play games. Not this time.

So she roamed.

Room by room, she catalogued the estate's silent pride. Galleries filled with oil paintings, books older than her entire bloodline, artifacts that hummed with family secrets. And then, at the end of a corridor she didn't remember from before, she found a door.

It was different.

Not grand, not gilded. Just plain wood, faded with time.

But locked.

She tugged the handle once. Twice.

No budge.

Then her eyes caught something strange just above the brass knob.

She crouched, ran her fingers across the frame.

Letters. Carved deep and jagged, like a child's handwriting.

Georgia.

Her name. Etched into the wood like a memory no one wanted to erase.

Goosebumps shot up her arms.

Behind her, the air shifted. Like someone exhaled too close.

But when she spun around nothing.

"This is a mistake," Georgia said aloud, staring at her reflection in the long hallway mirror.

She adjusted the strap of her evening dress deep emerald silk that clung like it knew all her secrets.

Dinner had been planned. Or more accurately, arranged. By whom? She didn't ask. She had her guesses.

Weston didn't make requests. He issued commands by silence alone.

When she arrived at the dining room, it was dimly lit, the massive oak table set for two. A single candle flickered in the center, casting shadows like dancers across the linen.

He was already seated.

No tie. Shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Black suit molded to his frame like it was afraid to displease him.

He didn't speak. Just looked up with those storm-gray eyes that had once held promises. Now they only held puzzles.

She took her seat across from him.

The silence stretched like taut string.

Finally, he spoke. "You unpacked."

"You watched."

A quirk of his lips. Almost a smile. Almost.

"I assumed you'd throw something."

"You assumed wrong."

Their gazes locked across the table. A war of wills wrapped in candlelight.

Courses came and went steak, wine, conversation that danced at the edge of civility.

Then came the laughter. Brief, accidental.

She'd told a story about her first gala, the way she'd spilled champagne on a countess.

"I remember that," Weston said, voice low. "You lied to the staff and blamed it on her dog."

Georgia grinned, the memory warming places in her chest she'd sworn were dead.

They paused.

A pocket of quiet.

She reached across the table, fingers brushing his hand.

Warmth. Contact. Real.

He jerked back like she'd burned him.

The chair scraped violently against the floor as he stood.

"Don't," he snapped. "Don't pretend this is something it's not."

And he was gone, storming down the corridor, his shadow swallowing the candlelight behind him.

Georgia sat frozen, hand still reaching for a ghost.

Midnight.

The mansion was a maze of sighs and whispers.

Georgia slipped from her room, wrapped in a silk robe that whispered around her ankles.

She didn't know what she was looking for. Closure, maybe. Or evidence that Weston hadn't buried every memory of them beneath his thousand-acre empire.

The study door was cracked.

She pushed it open.

Books lined the walls, spines worn with use. A decanter of whiskey stood on a corner table, half full.

She walked past the grand desk, her fingers trailing over the leather blotter. Papers, receipts everything in order. Too much so.

Then she saw it.

Tucked beneath a loose stack of ledgers was a photograph.

It wasn't framed. Wasn't meant to be found.

It was them.

Younger. Softer. His hand in hers, their bodies tangled beneath summer sun. She was laughing. He was watching her, not the camera.

Her chest ached.

She traced the edge of the photo, pulse quickening.

"You shouldn't be in here."

She turned. Fast.

Weston stood in the doorway, shirt undone, no shoes, like he belonged to the shadows.

"How long have you been watching?" she asked, voice sharp.

"Long enough to know curiosity's about to bite you back."

She held up the photo. "Why keep it if you hate me so much?"

His eyes didn't flicker. "Because hate and want are close cousins. Sometimes they share a bed."

Silence.

Then he stepped closer, closing the distance with lethal ease.

"You think you know me," he murmured.

"I used to," she whispered.

He reached for the photo, his fingers brushing hers.

The air cracked with tension.

"You want answers?" he said, voice low. "Then stop digging for secrets you won't survive."

Georgia stood still, heart hammering.

Because behind him barely visible was a second door.

And it was ajar.

And there was light.

And someone had just moved inside