Chapter 2: The Envelope Under the Door
Naomi looked up slowly.
"Every word," she said.
Vanessa smiled the way people smile when they've already decided how a conversation ends.
"Good.
Then you understand your position here."
"I understand it perfectly."
"I want you gone before the party.
I'll tell Ethan you resigned.
He'll be disappointed for a day, then he'll forget you exist."
Naomi said nothing.
She picked up the silver fork and resumed polishing it.
That silence made Vanessa step closer.
"Did you hear me?
I said you're done."
"I heard you, Ms.
Sterling."
"Then why are you still holding that fork?"
Naomi set it down gently and met her eyes.
"Because it still needed polishing."
Something shifted in Vanessa's expression.
Not anger.
Something closer to unease.
She left without another word.
That night, Naomi found an envelope slipped under her door.
Inside was a single printed page — her termination notice, signed and dated, effective the morning after the engagement party.
At the bottom, in Vanessa's handwriting: *Don't make a scene.*
Naomi read it twice.
Then she folded it carefully and placed it in her coat pocket.
She had no intention of making a scene.
But she also had no intention of leaving quietly.
What she didn't know yet was that someone else in that house had been watching Vanessa for weeks — and they had already decided to be in that ballroom on Saturday night.
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What Naomi discovered about that person — and what they handed her before the party started — changes everything.
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