Chapter 6
The Price of Loyalty
ANALIA continues giving chance after chance because she values loyalty. But loyalty without boundaries becomes expensive. Financially, emotionally, and mentally exhausted, she starts questioning why she continues protecting people who never protect her.
I’d always considered myself something of a connoisseur of fine things, or at least, I *aspired* to be. My apartment, while cozy, was more IKEA than Impressionist, and my culinary achievements rarely ventured beyond microwaved pasta. But Bartholomew? Bartholomew was a walking, talking embodiment of *finer things*. He shimmered. He sparkled. He invited me to his party, and I felt as if I’d won the lottery, a lottery I hadn’t even known I’d entered. His invitation, embossed on paper that felt like spun moonlight, had arrived via a liveried courier, which frankly, was enough to make my heart do a little jig against my ribs.
The party was everything I’d imagined and more. Crystal chandeliers dripped light onto a sea of impeccably dressed guests. The air hummed with polite laughter and the clinking of champagne flutes. Bartholomew, a vision in a velvet smoking jacket the color of a bruised plum, greeted me with a smile so