Angela “Mr. Anthony Jones is coming at ten a.m. I want this house sparkling before he gets here.” Verena says it from the doorway while I am on my knees beside the coffee table, trying to remove a stain Mirelle swears appeared by itself. Of course it did. Drinks in this house apparently develop legs, climb onto furniture, and spill themselves. I sit back on my heels and look up at her. “Good morning to you too.” Her mouth tightens. “The sitting room, dining room, and guest bathroom. And make sure the silver is polished.” I glance at the clock. “Anything else? Should I repaint the gate before nine too?” “Angela.” There is enough warning in my name to make me reach for the cloth again. Since Dad died, my position in this house has changed so much I almost missed the promotion. One day I was his daughter. Then I was helping Verena because she was grieving, or so I thought. Then helping became expectation, expectations gradually became my responsibility, and somewhere along the way I became the unpaid housekeeping department. Lyra comes down the stairs in a pale blue dress, staring at her phone. “Angela, can you steam the cream blouse in my room? I might wear it later.” “I’m cleaning.” “You have time.” Apparently she has access to a secret twenty-six-hour day I am not aware of. Before I can answer, Mirelle appears behind her. “And I need my black heels cleaned.” I look from one sister to the other, both younger than me and both so accustomed to handing me their problems that neither seems to hear how ridiculous they sound. “Would either of you like me to breathe for you too, or are we saving that for tomorrow?” Mirelle rolls her eyes and walks away. Lyra gives me the look she usually reserves for people who have disappointed her personally by existing. Verena ignores them and points toward the dining room. “You missed dust on the cabinet.” “I cleaned it already,” I say. “Then do it again.” I check the cabinet and find the dust she means. Traitorous dust. I wipe it away. I am halfway through wiping the dining table when Verena tells me to go upstairs and wash my hair. I stop with the cloth still in my hand. “My hair?” “And change before Mr. Jones arrives. Mirelle will give you something suitable.” Now I look at her properly. Cleaning the house for one of her important visitors is normal. Apparently being included in the decoration is new. “Why do I need to look suitable for your business meeting?” Verena adjusts one of the flowers in the arrangement on the table, then immediately moves it back to where it was. “It isn’t a business meeting.” “Then what kind of meeting is it?” “Must you question everything I tell you?” “Only the things that don’t make sense to me.” Her eyes lift to mine. “Go upstairs and get dressed, Angela.” A few minutes later, Mirelle appears with a beige dress draped over one arm. I take it from her and stare at it. “What is the occasion?” “Just wear it,” she says, already turning away. Something about today is beginning to bother me. Verena has spent the entire morning worrying about the food, the furniture, the flowers, and now, apparently, me. Whatever she wants from Anthony Jones must be important. I know his name from Verena’s calls about the company. Money has been tight for months, and every conversation about Dad’s old business now seems to involve delays, creditors, or Verena lowering her voice when I enter the room. If Mr Jones can fix whatever mess she has made, I suppose wearing this ugly beige dress for an hour will not kill me. By the time I shower, wrestle my hair into something Verena cannot complain about, and come downstairs in Mirelle’s beige dress, it is almost ten. Verena takes one look at me, tells me to straighten the neckline, then sends me to check the coffee as though I am both guest and staff. Mr. Jones arrives shortly after ten in a black car polished so perfectly I can see the front of the house reflected in the door. He is not ancient, but he is definitely old enough to be my father. His hair is silver at the temples, and the expensive watch on his wrist enters the room before the rest of him does. I am bringing in coffee when his eyes settle on me. They stay there. I stop beside the table. “Well,” Mr. Jones says, stepping around Verena toward me with his hand extended. “She’s even prettier than the photographs. You didn’t do her justice, Verena.” Photographs? My brain hits a sudden wall. “Excuse me?” I ask, looking from his outstretched hand to Verena. “What photographs?” Mr. Jones chuckles, a low, wet sound that makes my stomach turn over. “Modest, too. I like that. Verena told me you were a bit spirited, Angela, but a good home and a comfortable life work wonders for settling a young woman down.” He turns slightly toward Verena. “I’m pleased. The terms we discussed will work out fine.” The room goes very quiet. Behind me, I can hear Lyra shifting on the sofa, suddenly attentive. “What terms?” I ask, my voice dropping the polite surface edge entirely. I look straight at Verena, whose smile has grown dangerously brittle. “Verena, what is he talking about?” “Anthony is prepared to put money into the company and deal with the creditors your father left behind.” Verena's expression barely changes. “In return, he wants a wife. You need security, and I need this company kept alive. I saw no reason not to arrange an introduction.” The words take a moment to assemble themselves into meaning. She has actually promised me to this man. I look at the silver-haired man standing three feet from me, smelling of heavy cologne and cigars, and then back at my stepmother. The sheer absurdity of it hits me first—so ridiculous that for two seconds a laugh slips out before I can stop it. Not because anything is funny. My brain refuses to accept that this is a serious conversation. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say, the words slipping out plain and flat. “I’m not marrying this old man.” Mr. Jones’s smile falters slightly, his bushy eyebrows drawing together. “Now, see here—” “Angela,” Verena’s voice cuts in. “I’m twenty-three years old!” My voice rises, the shock finally giving way to a hot, sharp flare of anger. “You don’t get to negotiate a marriage for me with your business associates! What is this, the nineteenth century?” Verena rises slowly. “You will watch your tone, young lady.” “My tone is the least important thing happening in this room.” Mr. Jones puts down his cup. “Young women often resist these kinds of arrangements, but they later come to appreciate them.” I stare at him. “I promise you, I’m going to appreciate this one the same amount in thirty years.” “Enough.” Verena moves past Mr. Jones, her steps deliberate, until she stands directly in front of me.  “Let’s be very clear about some things here,” Verena says. “Ever since your father died, you have lived under my roof and eaten my food without contributing anything substantial. I kept you here out of respect for Gideon, but my generosity has limits.” “Your house?” My throat feels tight, hot blood rushing to my face. “This is my father’s house! He built this place. My childhood is in these walls!” “Not anymore, Angela. Your father left this property to me, and you have been living here on my charity. And charity has ended. Mr. Jones is offering you a secure future—one you certainly cannot afford on your own. You will accept his offer, or you will find somewhere else to sleep tonight.” The ultimatum hangs in the air between us, heavy and suffocating. Behind her, Mr. Jones steps closer, his posture relaxing into a patronizing smile. “Now, now, Verena, don’t be too hard on her,” he says smoothly, reaching out toward me. “It’s a lot to process. Young women get overwhelmed. Once she sees the house in Westchester, she’ll realize how lucky she is.” His large, heavy hand reaches forward, his fingers brushing against the side of my face, slipping down toward my jawline. “You’ll have a comfortable life,” he says. “You may not understand that now, but you will.” The contact makes my skin crawl. Before my mind even registers the command, my body moves. I snap my arm up, shoving his chest back with all the weight of my shoulders. “Don’t touch me!” Mr. Jones stumbles backward two full steps, his heel catching on the edge of the hallway rug. He catches his balance against the side table with a loud thud, rattling the crystal vase sitting on top. His face flushes a dark, ugly purple. The impact comes before I see Verena move. My head snaps sideways, and a hot sting spreads across my cheek as I bring one hand up instinctively. Verena stands right in front of me, her hand still raised, her chest heaving slightly. “You ungrateful little brat,” Verena whispers, her voice shaking with rage. “You will apologize to Mr. Jones right now, then you will go upstairs, pack your things, and prepare to leave with him.” I look at Verena with my hand still pressed to my cheek. She doesn't look sorry. She looks furious that I embarrassed her. She reaches out to grab my upper arm, her fingers pinching through my sweater. “Did you hear me? Move!” Mr. Jones is talking now. Lyra says something behind me. Mirelle joins in. Verena pulls me toward him, and suddenly there are too many voices, too many hands, too many people deciding what happens to me as though I have somehow left my own body behind. I wrench my arm out of her grip, lunging backward toward the front door. “I'm not going anywhere with him.” “Angela!” Verena snaps, stepping after me. “If you walk out that door, do not bother coming back. You are done here!” My hand finds the cold brass handle of the front door. For one agonizing second, my eyes dart up the grand staircase. My mother’s old silver locket is in the top drawer of my nightstand. My clothes are in the closet. My life, my room, every safe memory I have of my father is upstairs. If I walk up those stairs, I might not have another chance to escape this. I pull the front door open and run, making it halfway down the street before the tears finally start running down my cheeks.

Angela By the time I reach the end of the street, my cheek has stopped burning, but everything else has somehow got worse. I keep walking because stopping would require a plan, and I currently have none. My phone is in my hand, battery at thirty-eight percent, and I realize with fresh irritation that my charger is still plugged into the wall beside my bed. It is not even noon yet, and I am already homeless, unemployed, and one dead phone away from becoming completely unreachable. The thought almost makes me laugh, but my throat is too tight for that. I wipe my face with the back of my hand and keep moving. Verena’s voice keeps replaying in my head, along with the slap and the way Mr. Jones looked at me as though I was already something he had paid for. I should have grabbed my documents. I should have taken Dad’s photograph from my bedside table and Mum’s silver locket from the drawer. I decide to turn at the next corner because going straight would take me toward the bus station, and I have no idea what I would do once I got there. A sudden, deafening horn blast beside me. I turn my head and, for one horrible second, see nothing except the front of a dark sedan coming straight at me. The driver jerks the wheel. Tyres scream against the road as I stumble backward, my heel catching the edge of the pavement, and throw myself out of the way. The car misses me by what feels like inches. Then I hear the impact. A young woman hits the road several metres away. My stomach drops so hard that I nearly miss a step when I run toward her. She is lying near the opposite curb, one arm twisted beneath her, while her handbag has landed several feet away, half its contents scattered across the road. “Oh my God,” I whisper. Someone shouts behind me as traffic slows around us. I drop beside the woman and reach for her shoulder, then stop when a man rushing over says, “Don’t move her.” He is right. Of course he is right. My hands hover uselessly for half a second before I grab my phone. I give the emergency operator the street name from the nearest shop sign because I cannot remember where I am. My voice sounds too loud in my own ears. I answer questions while staring at the thin line of blood near the woman’s temple and the rise and fall of her chest, checking it over and over because I need it to continue. The driver swerved because of me, and that thought wipes Verena, Mr. Jones, and the house clean out of my head. When the call ends, I kneel closer without touching her. “Hey, can you hear me? An ambulance is coming.” The woman doesn't respond. People have started gathering. I notice a phone near the gutter, a wallet farther down, lipstick crushed under someone’s shoe, and papers shifting in the breeze. Her handbag must have opened when she fell. I get up and collect everything I can before traffic, or somebody’s helpful fingers make it disappear. By the time sirens approach, I am holding her bag against my chest and standing close enough to watch the paramedics work without getting in their way. One of them looks at me. “Are you family?” “No. I saw what happened, and I have her belongings.” The paramedic glances at the bag in my hands, then toward the ambulance. “You can ride up front. Stay out of the way while we work.” At the hospital, everything becomes bright lights, forms, questions, and people moving much faster than I can think. A nurse asks for the woman’s name. “I don’t know.” “You came in with her?” “Yes, but I don’t know her.” The nurse’s expression changes slightly, and I hear how strange that sounds. “I picked up her things after the accident.” I open the handbag and pull out the wallet. There is an identification card inside. I hand it over without really looking beyond the photograph and the first line of information. “Elise Marlowe,” the nurse reads. They take her through double doors before I can ask anything else. I lower myself into a chair, get back up after less than a minute, then sit again when the room tilts slightly. I have not eaten since morning, I have cried enough to qualify as a weather system, and somewhere between leaving home and watching a stranger get hit by a car, this day has stopped feeling normal. A doctor approaches after what might be twenty minutes or an hour. "Who came in with the patient?" A doctor approaches after what might be twenty minutes or an hour. “Who came in with the patient?” I stand immediately. “Me. How is she?” “She’s stable for the moment, but she lost a lot of blood. We’re arranging additional units now.” “What type does she need?” “O negative.” I answer before I can think about it. “I’m O negative.” The doctor looks at me more carefully. “We would still need to screen you first.” “Please do what you have to do to save her” Maybe I do not owe Elise Marlowe my blood in any legal sense. Maybe none of this would technically be considered my fault. I do not care. If I had looked before walking into that road, she would not be behind those doors, so if there is something I can do to save her, that will be the least I can do. The donation leaves me light-headed and cold. Someone gives me juice and tells me to sit still for a while, which would be easier if my brain understood the concept. Eventually a doctor tells me Elise is stable, and my shoulders finally drop against the back of the chair. “She’s stable, but she’s still unconscious. We can’t say yet when she’ll wake.” “Can I see her?” He hesitates. “Briefly.” I follow him into a quiet room. Elise looks smaller in the hospital bed than she did on the road. There is a bandage near her temple, and the monitor beside her keeps a steady rhythm. I lower myself into the chair beside the bed and look at her for a few seconds before I manage to speak. “I’m sorry.” My eyes drop to her hand resting on the blanket. “I should have looked before I stepped onto that road. You shouldn’t be lying here because I wasn’t paying attention.” She gives me nothing back except the steady sound of the monitor. “I don’t even know if you can hear me,” I add quietly, but I stay where I am. I sit back, too tired to leave and too guilty to convince myself I should. Besides, where would I even go?  For a while, I watch the monitor and the hand resting on top of the blanket. Eventually my attention drifts back to her face. Without the blood, panic, and people moving around us, I can actually see her properly. I lean forward, studying the curve of her brows, the shape of her nose and the line of her mouth. The longer I look, the less comfortable I feel, until I finally lean closer and study her properly. Wait. What the hell? My eyes move from her brows to her nose and then her mouth. No freaking way. Maybe I am exhausted, maybe donating blood has messed with my head, or maybe today has simply decided it is not done with me yet, but the resemblance refuses to disappear. This woman does not just look familiar.  She looks like me.

Angela I am still staring at her when a nurse comes in to check the monitor. She glances at me, then at the woman in the bed, and I realize I have probably been sitting here for several minutes looking at a stranger like I am trying to memorize her face. “Is everything all right?” she asks. “I think so.” I look back at the bed. “She just looks... familiar.” That is the safest word I can find. Familiarity does not explain the shape of her mouth, the slight arch in her brows, or the fact that if somebody showed me a photograph of her from the right angle, I might ask when I had taken it. The nurse adjusts the line near her hand. “If you didn't mention not knowing her, I’d think you're sisters.” When she leaves, I lean closer again. “Okay, this is weird.” The woman says nothing, which is fair. She has already had a worse day than I have. I sit back and force myself to stop staring. People look alike. The world has billions of faces, so eventually two of them are bound to overlap more than they should. That explanation would be much easier to believe if hers were not currently lying three feet away from me. My eyes fall on the handbag tucked beneath the visitor’s chair. The hospital has her name now, but nobody has found a relative yet. Her phone is locked, and the nurse who took her details earlier asked whether I had seen anything in the bag that might help them contact someone. I pull it onto my lap. “Before you wake up and accuse me of stealing,” I tell her quietly, “I am looking for your family.” I open the wallet first. The identification card confirms what I heard earlier: Elise Marlowe, twenty-three years old. Same age as me. Of course she is. Why should today settle for one strange coincidence when it can have two? There is a bank card, a medical insurance card, several receipts, and enough cash folded into one compartment to make me shut the wallet again before my life starts giving me more bad ideas. There is no emergency contact. I move to the papers I collected from the road. Most are neatly arranged inside a slim document folder, though one corner is bent from the accident. The first page is a résumé. I scan it, then go back to the top and read it properly. Bachelor’s degree. Postgraduate certification. Internships with companies whose names I recognize from business news. Advanced data analysis. Strategic planning. Supply-chain optimization. I glance at Elise. “You could have left me one easy qualification.” My own education ended before it was supposed to. After Dad died, money became complicated, then Verena became more complicated, and eventually finishing school moved from something I was definitely going to do to something I kept promising myself I would return to. The next paper is an interview confirmation for Price Global Logistics & Infrastructure, for the position of Strategic Projects Associate in the Office of the CEO. The interview is today, and when I check the time on my phone, I realize it starts in two hours and eleven minutes. I look at the paper, then at Elise, and immediately reject the thought forming in my head. Absolutely not. I slide the document into the folder and close it because that would be insane. I am homeless, not criminally ambitious. I set the folder on the chair beside me and manage not to touch it for almost thirty seconds before looking at it again. “No,” I say aloud this time, apparently because my own brain has stopped respecting private decisions. Elise remains unconscious, which means at least one of us is behaving sensibly. I stand and walk toward the window. Outside, people move through the hospital courtyard with places to go. A man is helping an elderly woman into a taxi. Two nurses are sharing something from a paper bag. Everybody seems attached to a life that is waiting for them when they leave here. I have my phone, the clothes I am wearing, and a small amount of money in my account. My father’s house is no longer mine if Verena has anything to say about it. I have no job, and I do not have a friend close enough to call and announce that I need a bed tonight without also explaining the disaster that produced the request. Behind me, the interview folder sits quietly on the chair. This is a terrible idea, which is why I go back and pick it up. “I am only looking,” I tell unconscious Elise That is obviously how terrible ideas begin, but I open the résumé anyway. The position is not completely foreign to me. Dad’s company was much smaller than Price Global, but logistics is logistics. I grew up hearing about delayed deliveries over breakfast and warehouse problems during dinner. Drivers called Dad at ridiculous hours. Suppliers changed prices. Clients wanted impossible deadlines. He used to spread route sheets across the dining table and ask me where I thought the problem was. Sometimes I was wrong, and sometimes he changed something because of what I noticed. I never thought of it as training. It was just time with Dad. I read Elise’s résumé again and understand perhaps half of the language in the way she probably does. The rest looks like someone took ordinary business problems and dressed them in expensive vocabulary. That does not make me qualified. Unfortunately, it makes the idea feel slightly less impossible. I unlock my phone. Price Global’s website loads first. The company is enormous, with international freight, warehousing, infrastructure, supply-chain technology and industrial development. I skim the page about the Strategic Projects division, then search the job title separately. By the third article, I have twelve browser tabs open and regret all of them. Some of it is new. Some of it sounds suspiciously like things Dad used to do while complaining that a supplier had lost his mind. I search likely interview questions next and immediately regret it when every website seems to have a different opinion about what I am supposed to say. One website suggests Tell us about yourself, which is dangerous for obvious reasons, followed by Why do you want to work at Price Global? Apparently “because I need somewhere to sleep” is honest but not especially competitive. I keep scrolling. The more technical questions are easier to prepare for because at least they have answers I can learn.  Then I go back through Elise’s résumé, searching every qualification and responsibility I do not understand. Some of it sticks. Some of it enters my brain, looks around and apparently decides there is no available space. I check the time. One hour and forty-three minutes left.  Shit. I start again from the top of Elise’s résumé. “Elise Marlowe,” I murmur, forcing myself to read the name before anything else this time. If I am really going to do this, knowing what stakeholder mapping means will not help much if I forget who I am supposed to be. “Okay, Elise,” I say, looking over at the bed. “This is not me stealing your job.” Even unconscious, she somehow looks unconvinced. “I am attending an interview you physically cannot attend. There is a difference.” If I fail, which is extremely likely, nothing changes. If she wakes up, I can explain. If by some miracle I do not fail, I refuse to think that far. I check the time again and close the last interview-preparation page on my phone. Research is not going to save me if I arrive looking like I've spent the day crying and with a dress torn and stained from the accident. I need clothes. Fast. I gather Elise's CV, tell her I'll be back, and hurry for the door. As I pull the door open in a hurry, already calculating how much time I have left to find a dress, I walk straight into a man coming down the corridor. The collision sends me back a step. His coffee doesn't survive it. The cup jerks between us, spilling across the front of his dark suit and the white shirt underneath. “Oh, shit. I'm so sorry.” I look up, ready to apologize properly, and my brain takes an extremely unhelpful detour. Damn, he’s hot. Very tall, broad through the shoulders, with dark hair, a hard, handsome face and the kind of mouth I would probably have stared at under less disastrous circumstances. Even angry, he's ridiculously attractive. My eyes drop briefly over him. Okay. Maybe very attractive. Then he speaks. “Are you blind, or do you normally walk through doors without looking where you're going?” Well. There we go; the face doesn't match the attitude. “I said I'm sorry.” His gaze drops to the coffee soaking into his jacket. “An apology doesn't replace a suit that costs more than you can possibly make in months.” My embarrassment starts turning into something considerably less apologetic. His gaze moves over my wrinkled clothes and cheap bag before returning to my face. The disdain that settles over his face makes me lower the tissues I was already pulling from my bag. “People like you don't belong on the private floors. You should make inquiries before wandering wherever you please.” Oh. So he's not only an asshole. He's a rich one. “I came out so fast that I mistakenly ruined your suit. Which I already apologized for.” I put the tissues back into my bag. “But if looking expensive is the only thing keeping you from being mistaken for trash, then maybe you should learn not to talk too much. You look better with a closed mouth” His face goes completely still, and I take the rare silence as my chance to leave before common sense catches up with everything I've just said. “Get your suit cleaned. You'll survive.” I step around him and continue toward the elevator, ignoring the sharp “Come back here.” that follows me down the corridor.  Whatever else he has to say, I've already apologized once, and I'm definitely not staying around long enough to be insulted twice. I have less than two hours to turn myself into Elise Marlowe. The gorgeous asshole with the coffee problem is officially none of mine. The elevator doors open just as I reach them, and an elderly couple steps out. The woman looks around uncertainly before stopping a passing nurse. “Excuse me, is this the private floor?” “Fifth floor,” the nurse tells her. “This is the trauma and surgical floor.” My foot stops halfway into the elevator. I glance back down the corridor. He is still standing outside Elise’s room, his coffee-stained jacket forgotten for the moment as his eyes move from the nurse to the floor number beside the elevator. When he looks at me again, the tight set of his mouth tells me he has reached the same conclusion I have: he is the one who got off on the wrong floor. Twenty minutes later, I am standing in front of a clearance rack trying to decide how much professionalism I can afford with the money left in my account. I buy black trousers, a simple cream blouse and the cheapest flats that do not look like they will fall apart before sunset. The shop assistant lets me change in the fitting room and points me toward the mirror. It is not impressive, but it is clean, and for today, clean will have to carry the rest. I fix my hair, wash my face properly in the restroom, and study Elise’s résumé all the way across town. By the time I reach the glass tower bearing PRICE GLOBAL across its entrance, my head feels packed with somebody else’s life. I stop on the pavement and check the name at the top of the résumé one last time. “Elise Marlowe,” I whisper, repeating the name under my breath as I walk toward the doors.  If I am going to survive the next hour, I have one job: remember who I am supposed to be. Then I step inside.