Faye looked out of the window at the trees rushing past. She was sitting on the train to V?ster?s with a bundle of sketches in her bag. She had left Kerstin in charge of the dog-walking business, and was on her way to meet a company that designed packaging.

Her products needed to be good, but there was something that was even more important if she was to be successful. Social media. It was all about reaching out, being visible in the torrent, going viral. And packaging was a simple way to create a must-have feel and make influencers advertise her products with their Instagram and Facebook accounts. The products needed to make the consumer feel special, and they needed to look good on pictures taken with phones.

Faye had decided that the pots of skin-cream should be black, and the round lid adorned with an ornate, gold-colored letter R. But the packaging wasn’t only about the look of the jars. There had to be a story behind it all. All successful products these days had a story. Like Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream. It didn’t matter whether she really had developed the cream to heal the leg of one of her injured horses, and that the wound healed in eight hours. The fact that customers wanted to believe the story was what counted. Everyone loved a good story. And Faye had one hell of a story.

As the train swept through the M?laren Valley she felt nothing but pure, unadulterated joy. This was what she had been longing for: the chance to build a company from the ground up. Jack had taken that dream away from her. And she hadn’t protested. When had he first been unfaithful to her? Had he ever been faithful? Even when she was sure he loved and desired her?

She had spent a lot of time wondering why Jack had replaced her with Ylva, a career woman, when he had wanted Faye to be at home, but she had come to realize that it was the chase that interested men like Jack. They always wanted something new to play with.

She had also realized that he liked having power. The power to turn her into someone that she wasn’t.

She would never let a man own her again.

It was raining when she emerged from the station. She found a taxi, jumped in, and gave the driver the address. V?ster?s was an awful lot bigger than Fj?llbacka, but for some reason the people made her think of her home town. She always used to fend off those memories whenever they popped up. But something had changed after the turbulence of the past few months. People from her childhood and teenage years often came into her mind. The look on her father’s face when something wasn’t the way he wanted. The clenched expression on Sebastian’s face. The accident that had affected the whole community. Her mom’s pale arms and loud crying. The way her classmates had looked at her afterward. Sympathetic. Curious. Intrusive.

She had left all that behind. But would she ever be able to truly get away from it?

The car pulled up while she was lost in her memories. The driver turned to look at her. His mouth was moving but Faye didn’t hear a word of what he was saying.

“Sorry?”

“Card or cash?”

“Card,” she said, and dug in her handbag for her wallet.

She got out of the taxi, and a beige industrial building rose up in front of her. The rain had eased slightly, but small, cold drops were still falling. She pulled the door open and stepped into the entrance hall. A female receptionist with permed red hair looked up at her.

“Welcome,” she said, but it sounded more like “please, get me out of here.” She had been busy filing her nails when Faye walked in.

“Thanks—I’m here to see Louise Widerstr?m Bergh.”

The receptionist nodded. Tapped at her computer.

“Please, have a seat.” She gestured toward some seats over by the window. “Coffee?”

Faye shook her head. There was a stack of magazines on the windowsill behind the sofa. She picked up a three-week-old celebrity magazine and leafed through it. There was an article announcing that John Descentis had broken up with his girlfriend. Faye studied the picture. It was the same woman he had been with at Riche, Suzanne Lund, apparently. The article claimed she was both a model and a singer.

“I’m not easy to live with,” John explained in a quote. No, but who the hell is? Faye thought, remembering their desperate, pointless fuck in the cinema. How grubby and sordid it had been. That had been all she thought she deserved at the time. Now, in hindsight, she wished she’d told Jack about it, to rub his nose in it. She had been on the brink of telling him several times but never had. Largely for fear of being met with complete indifference.

She heard footsteps in the corridor. A woman in a blouse and suit trousers came toward her. She exuded a cool demeanor as she looked Faye up and down.

“Louise Widerstr?m Bergh,” she said, and held out a limp, slightly moist hand.

“Faye. Faye Adelheim.”

The moment they walked into her office Faye’s phone rang.

It was Jack. He probably wanted to shout at her about her behavior in Riche. She dismissed the call and took out her sketches. She was no good at drawing herself, but Chris was helping until they could afford to bring in a professional. Louise settled down behind the desk as Faye sank onto the visitor’s chair.

“This shouldn’t be a problem,” Louise said, putting on a pair of reading glasses. “A little something to keep yourself busy?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, obviously I know who you are. I’m assuming this is for a party or something?”

Faye took a deep breath.

“I want thirty thousand of each of the three designs I’ve got sketched out here. Can you manage that, or should I look for someone else?”

Louise pursed her lips.

“Thirty thousand? Of these? I assume you can guarantee the order? The market for this type of product is already oversaturated, and obviously we can’t afford to spend money on goods we don’t end up getting paid for, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Of course if you were still married it would be a completely different matter. Jack Adelheim would be an excellent guarantor, but as I understand that you’re now separated . . .”

“You haven’t read the description of the concept? The one I emailed you? Don’t you appreciate the unique aspects of what I’m going to be bringing to a very demanding market?”

Faye felt frustration burning her throat.

Louise Widerstr?m Bergh snorted and took her glasses off. She shot Faye a patronizing smile.

“Yes, but like I said, I thought we were looking at some sort of themed party. Obviously I know the sort of life you ?stermalm wives lead, and that isn’t the reality for the rest of us. To be honest, I think the idea of launching a brand based on some sort of girl power suggests that you’ve got your head in the clouds. People in Stockholm are the only ones who can afford that sort of thing, out here in the rest of the country we let women be women and men be men. No, I’m not going to risk putting this packaging into production only to have to chase you for payment.”

She started to laugh and Faye stood up. Her temples were throbbing.

“I’ve got the capital to pay upfront for the whole order. You could have had the money in your account tomorrow. And if this goes the way I think it will, this could have turned out to be a good, ongoing source of income for your company. Maybe it could have paid for a couple of extra holidays for you and your family. Or a nice summerhouse by the water. Or whatever it is you dream about. But I’ll be taking my business elsewhere. And paying for someone else’s holiday cottage or Christmas break in the Maldives. And believe me, I’ll ask them to send you a postcard.”

She turned on her heel and walked out. She could feel Louise’s stare burning into her back.

—

She had missed twenty calls from Jack, but Faye waited until the train had pulled out of V?ster?s before she called him. After a long “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” harangue he launched into a diatribe about how inappropriate it was to be seen socializing with people on benefits.

“What are you so angry about?” Faye asked when he stopped to take a breath.

Anger and frustration at the failed meeting were still in her system.

Outside the landscape was sweeping past faster and faster. Jack’s anger didn’t prompt any reaction in her at all. She shut her eyes and remembered her night with Robin. Against her better judgment she had ended up giving him her number, and had already received five text messages telling her all the things he wanted to do with her. Jack’s voice broke through her fantasies and she opened her eyes in irritation. He was going on and on in a shrill, whiny voice. Like a child who had lost his favorite toy.

“Sitting in Riche making out with some boy who could have been your son. In public. That sort of shit rebounds onto me.”