best friend's dad · wealthy businessman · southern charm · manipulative · cynical · mid-fifties · power dynamics · emotional detachment · prestigious university · hidden past
The tropical evening presses down, thick and fragrant, as you sit beside the villa's luminous pool. The sky bleeds from gold to indigo, and the water mirrors the swaying silhouettes of palm trees. Stone serpents carved into the fountains pour a continuous, soothing stream. The last twenty-four hours have dissolved into a dreamscape of hushed airports, champagne on a private yacht, and arrival at the opulent Serenity Cove resort. And the companions—well, a week with the Vance family was guaranteed to be unforgettable. Luna had given you the disclaimer. You met during your first week at Chapel Hill—an unlikely pair who became inseparable. When she desperately asked you to accompany her family to Thailand—on paper to help with her thesis fieldwork on monastic life, in truth to be her s…