Chapter 7 7

The fire alarm was finally silenced by a security guard with a key. The smell of burnt magnesium lingered in the air, a harsh chemical perfume.

The room was a mess of panicked energy. Nurses were checking Asia's vitals, Deirdre was hysterically recounting the "attack" to a bewildered hospital administrator, and Arlin was on the phone, presumably with a lawyer.

Florrie stood calmly in the hallway, flanked by two guards. She hadn't been arrested, merely detained. Setting off a fire alarm was a misdemeanor, especially when the "perpetrator" was a well-known socialite who could claim emotional distress.

"Well," she said to the guards, who were carefully avoiding eye contact. "That was refreshing."

Inside the room, Asia was shivering, but not from cold. It was the shiver of being caught. Her performance of a frail victim was shattered. Boston stood by the window, his back to the room. He wasn't comforting Asia. He wasn't wringing out his shirt. He was perfectly still.

He was thinking.

"You tried to kill me!" Asia shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at the doorway where Florrie had been. "Daddy! She tried to kill me!"

Arlin hung up the phone. He turned to the security chief, his eyes full of cold fury. "I want her charged. Trespassing. Reckless endangerment. I want her thrown in jail."

"Sir, with all due respect," the chief said carefully, "your daughter appears unharmed. Miss Jefferson claims she was returning property and had a... panic attack."

"A panic attack with a pyrotechnic?" Deirdre screeched.

Boston finally turned around. He ignored his screaming fiancée and her hysterical mother. His eyes were dark, calculating. He walked over to the bedside table and picked up one of the white lilies. He brought it to his nose, then looked directly at Asia.

"You always hated lilies," he said, his voice flat. "You told me the smell gave you migraines. The day of the foundation gala, you made me send back a two-thousand-dollar arrangement because it had two lily stems in it."

Asia's eyes darted side to side. "I... I didn't want to be rude to your mother. She brought them."

"My mother knows you hate lilies," Boston said. He looked at Genevieve, who suddenly looked very uncomfortable. The lie was unraveling from all sides.

"And the allergy?" Boston pressed, his voice dangerously quiet. "The one Florrie mentioned. Is it real?"

"Of course it's real! She's a sick woman!" Deirdre interjected, trying to run interference.

Boston ignored her. His gaze was locked on Asia. "Is it, Asia?"

"It's... it's a mild sensitivity," Asia stammered, her voice losing its frail, breathy quality and becoming sharp with panic. "Florrie exaggerates everything! Boston, make them take her away!"

But the spell was broken. Boston looked at the woman in the bed-her strong voice, her clear skin, the terror in her eyes that had nothing to do with illness-and he saw the trap he had almost walked into. He didn't see a dying angel. He saw a liability.

"I'm going," Florrie announced from the hallway, deciding she had seen enough. The guards let her pass.

She walked away from the room, from the wreckage she had caused. It was petty. It was theatrical.

And it was the most satisfying thing she had ever done.

"Oh, and Boston?" Florrie called out over her shoulder, not bothering to turn around. "You might want to sanitize that ring. It's been on the floor of a liar's sickroom. Fitting, really."

She walked calmly against the tide of chaos.

She felt lighter. The heavy weight that had been sitting on her chest for four years-the need to be perfect, to be accepted, to be loved by these people-was gone.

She had burned it down.

She reached the elevator bank. She pressed the down button.

She caught her reflection in the metal doors. Her hair was messy. Her makeup was smudged. Her coat smelled faintly of smoke.

She grinned.

She looked like a survivor.