FALLON

I looked into a pair of honey-brown orbs that stared back at me, their pupils dilated in surprise before slowly returning to normal. Grace, Damian's younger sister, blinked a few times, as if trying to reconcile the image before her with the one she remembered.

"Penelope?" she murmured, almost as if she wasn't sure if she was saying the right name.

The only thing more surprising than her expression was how she managed to pronounce my name correctly on the first try. It was always Parsley, Palmer, or anything that began with P, and when I corrected her, she'd slap me on my face hard enough to have me tasting that metallic tang in my mouth, saying a fice had no right to correct her, much worse a fice with a murderer as a father.

"I-I almost didn't recognize you. You look-" Her gaze traveled down the length of my body, taking in the gown that clung to my frame and the way I held myself, before finally resting back on my face.