(Angela’s POV)
After the door clicked shut behind Harrison, and the faint echo of his footsteps faded into the hall, calmness hit the room one that was impossible to ignore.
William poured himself another drink from the champagne bottle.
I remained seated, unmoving, watching the amber liquid swirl in his glass, its movement slow and hypnotic—as if time itself had paused.
My thoughts drifted, uninvited and untethered—not toward the politics of this marriage, or the carefully disguised power plays still rippling beneath the surface, or even the simple fact that I was spending the night in a mansion that didn’t feel like home. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
No.
Instead, my mind wandered to something more fragile, more human.
The peculiar ways we all want to be known.
Underneath the masks a
