The morning air was sharp with citrus and damp from early sprinklers. Somewhere outside, the garden was being trimmed, the hum of distant clippers blending with birdsong. But inside Maddie’s room… there was only silence. And the aftermath. The sheets were…

The house was quiet. Too quiet. Maddie lay on her back in the center of her massive bed, arms above her head, golden hair spilling like liquid sunlight across the silk pillows. A light summer breeze whispered through the open…

The next morning, the house was humming. It wasn’t noise exactly—it was energy. A low, smoldering frequency that pulsed through the walls, through the marble floors, through the air like heat rising off pavement. Everyone felt it. But only Maddie controlled it. She…

The morning after Cole, Maddie didn’t wake up in his bed. She didn’t need to. She let herself out while he slept, warm and tangled in the sheets, his breath still heavy from what they’d done. His scent clung to her. The…

The house had gone still. Maddie stood barefoot at the threshold of Cole’s wing, her white robe barely tied at the waist, skin still dewy from her bath. The moonlight from the window cast pale ribbons across the floor, but…