The Mask Slips

Hadley’s POV

Present.

I had never planned to say it out loud. Not like this. Not in a restaurant with soft jazz in the background and champagne glasses clinking like nothing in the world could be ugly. But people can only take so much poking before they snap, and Valerie Hayes hadn’t just reached my limit. She’d blown right past it and kept going like she enjoyed the sound of me cracking.

Her face