Cora POV:
The next morning, Hudson stood in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling mirror in his walk-in closet, adjusting his collar. I sat on the edge of the mattress, watching him with the quiet, docile stillness he expected. His hands moved with practiced precision, looping a thick, deep navy blue silk tie into a flawless Windsor knot.
As an architect, I noticed details. Textures, colors, the geometry of how things fit together. I had an eidetic memory for the things he wore.
He turned around, shrugging into his tailored suit jacket. He walked over, leaned down, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. "I'll see you for dinner, darling," he murmured, his mask completely impenetrable.
Fast forward to six o'clock in the evening. The electronic keypad on the heavy mahogany front door beeped three times. He was home, right on schedule.
I stood in the foyer, holding his indoor slippers in my hands. The perfect, subservient wife waiting to greet her provider. It made my skin crawl, but I knew that extreme submission was the only way to lower his defenses.
The door swung open. Hudson stepped inside, bringing a rush of damp, freezing Seattle air with him.
I looked up, a greeting dying on my lips. My eyes locked onto his chest. My lungs seized, the air completely knocked out of me.
He wasn't wearing the navy blue silk tie.
Hanging from his collar, knotted with a sloppy, uneven hand, was a hideous, bright red tie covered in cheap white polka dots. The fabric looked thin, almost synthetic. It was a violent clash against his expensive bespoke suit. It was a tie someone else had tied for him.
I dug my fingernails so hard into the leather of his slippers that the skin of my palms threatened to tear. I forced the muscles in my face to hold my placid smile, fighting the sheer panic and rage threatening to rip me apart.
I stepped forward, offering the slippers, and took his heavy wool overcoat. "You changed your tie," I said. I kept my voice light, casual, barely interested.
Hudson’s arms froze halfway out of the coat sleeves. It was a micro-second of hesitation. A tiny glitch in the matrix.
He recovered instantly, stepping into the slippers. "Ah, yes," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Spilled half a cup of black coffee down my front during the two o'clock deposition. Complete disaster."
He tugged at the red fabric, his face twisting in genuine distaste. "I had my assistant run down to the lobby kiosk to buy a replacement. It’s an absolute eyesore, isn't it?"
He was smooth. By insulting the tie, he was trying to align himself with my taste, disarming any suspicion.
I didn't do what the old Cora would have done. I didn't ask if the assistant was a man or a woman. I didn't raise my voice. I just smiled softly.
"It's not that bad," I lied smoothly, turning my back to him to hang his coat in the closet. "You make anything look handsome."
When I turned back around, I caught a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He stared at me for a long moment, searching my face for the paranoia he was so used to seeing. Finding nothing but empty sweetness, his shoulders finally relaxed. He really believed the medication had lobotomized me.
At two in the morning, the house was dead silent. Hudson was flat on his back, his chest rising and falling in the deep, rhythmic breathing of REM sleep.
I slipped out from under the duvet like a ghost. My bare feet sank into the plush carpet, making absolutely no sound. My body had learned how to move through this house without disturbing the air.
I crept out of the bedroom, down the dark hallway, and pushed open the door to the laundry room at the back of the house.
The room was pitch black, save for a single beam of moonlight cutting through the high transom window, illuminating the woven wicker hamper in the corner.
I dropped to my knees on the freezing tile floor. I lifted the lid and plunged my hands into the pile of his dirty clothes. The smell of his cologne mixed with sweat made me want to gag, but I kept digging. I pushed past dress shirts and trousers until my fingers brushed against a pool of cold, smooth silk at the very bottom.
I yanked it out.
I held the fabric up into the beam of moonlight. It was the navy blue tie from this morning.
I brought it inches from my face, my eyes scanning every square inch of the expensive silk. Top to bottom. Front to back.
There was no coffee stain. Not a single drop of brown liquid. The front was perfectly clean.
But as I flipped the tail end of the tie over, my thumb brushed against something stiff. Right on the back, near the tip, was a large, crusty white patch. It was completely dried, stiffening the silk into a rigid board.
I ran the pad of my thumb over the rough edge of the stain. My brows pulled together in the dark.
I brought the silk right up to my nose.
"Not coffee."
