The Reading of the Will
The Fine Print

The Warning

August 25, 2026 · Part 6 of 10 · 2 min

At the fitting — moved up, exactly as threatened — Corinne stood behind Naomi at the mirror, adjusting a veil that didn't need adjusting.

"You look tired," Corinne said, in the same tone she might comment on weather.

"Wedding stress." Naomi kept her eyes on the mirror, not on Corinne's hands near her collarbone.

"Mm." Corinne's reflection watched her the way a hawk watches something that hasn't noticed it yet. "Delphine called you yesterday, didn't she."

Naomi's stomach lurched, but she kept her face still. "She called to talk about seating."

"Delphine hasn't cared about seating charts in fifteen years." Corinne's fingers stilled on the veil. "She cares about old photographs. About old names she thinks I don't know she still keeps."

The pins on the dress suddenly felt very sharp against Naomi's ribs.

"I don't know what you mean," Naomi said.

Corinne smiled into the mirror — the first real smile Naomi had ever seen from her, and somehow it was worse than the cold ones. "You're a smart girl. Smarter than the last one, I think. She never even looked for the drawer."

Naomi's breath caught. It was as close to a confession as she was ever going to get, and Corinne had delivered it like small talk.

"The last one," Naomi repeated carefully. "Grant's mother."

"Grant doesn't have a mother," Corinne said, pleasant as ever, straightening the veil one final inch. "He has me. And in eighteen hours, if you're wise, he'll have you too — properly, permanently, on paper, the way this family does things." She stepped back to admire the dress like a finished portrait. "The question, dear, is whether you're going to be smart enough to sign quietly and build a real life here, or foolish enough to go digging in Millbrook and lose everything before you even have it."

She said the town's name like it cost her nothing to know it. Like she'd known exactly where Naomi had been the entire time.

Naomi's reflection stared back at her, pale under the veil, pinned into a dress she suddenly couldn't breathe in.

Corinne turned and walked out without waiting for an answer, leaving the door open behind her — and on the small side table by the door, exactly where Naomi couldn't miss it, sat the thick sealed envelope from the locked drawer, already addressed, in Corinne's handwriting, to a name Naomi had never heard before: Ms. R. Calder, Millbrook.

Continue the story Part 7: The Signature Already Given →

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