The next few days settled into a rhythm that felt unreal, like we were living inside a picture taken by someone else. Morning light painted the villa gold. Birds sang across the trees before the sun reached the ocean. The wind played with the curtains like soft fingertips. Everything here should have been perfect. Paradise. A dream.
But inside the dream, something kept shifting between us.
Chase began to see me. Not the mask. Not the borrowed hair. Not the shape of Cassandra stitched over my skin. Something else. Something smaller. A girl hidden behind a life that did not belong to her.
It happened in small ways.
At breakfast, Malia would tell stories about growing up near the beach, about fishing with her father and climbing palm trees barefoot. I would listen closely, asking question
