The silence that followed Ambrose Ward’s question was thick enough to choke on. Gwendolyn Preston stood in the center of the living room at Sandmere Springs, the oversized sweater hanging off her frame, making her look even smaller than she was. Her mind was a battlefield where two voices clashed with violent intensity. One was the voice of the girl who had been saved from a cold, rainy night—the girl who wanted to believe that the warmth in Ambrose’s eyes was real. The other was the voice of her mother, Serena Frost, whispering a warning from the depths of an Interrogation Room: “Trust no one, Gwendolyn. Not even the ones who save you.”
She looked at Ambrose. To anyone else, he looked like a magnanimous protector, a Grand Scholar of the modern age who carried his power with a gentle, eas
