Isabel, what's wrong with you?"
Jaxon's voice cut through the silence, sharp but with an edge of concern. I lifted my eyes from my untouched cup of coffee, my fingers clenching around the ceramic. The heat had leeched away, like my ability to hide the maelstrom inside me.
"Nothing," I said, too fast.
His eyes narrowed. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Shut me out.
I let my breath out and looked away, my head spinning once more on that photograph and those words beneath them: Hazel, Jaxon's true heir. It sounded like a dead weight pressed upon my chest. I wanted to tell him. Wanted to ask him if he knew what that meant. Yet something was keeping me back, whether fear or uncertainty or perhaps doubt.
Jaxon leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "You've been distant. Ever since that nigh
