In the bathroom, he got down on one knee.

Under the roof of a blended family, the dynamic between Adrian Hale and his stepsister Clara Whitmore was always veiled by a thin layer of gauze. Clara Whitmore possessed a striking beauty and a fiery temperament, like a flame that couldn't be put out, constantly teasing Adrian Hale and pushing his tightly wound nerves. Adrian Hale was accustomed to yielding, dismissing her provocations as mere jokes. That afternoon, in the grip of mind-numbing boredom, Clara Whitmore pushed open his bedroom door, and the air instantly thickened. A suggestion about "helping with a bath" made Adrian Hale's defenses waver dangerously in the rising steam. He didn't know what this stepsister really wanted, but he felt himself being drawn, step by step, into a whirlpool from which there would be no turning back.