The ride home was silent — the kind of silence that wasn’t empty, but full. The kind that hummed with thoughts unspoken and emotions too delicate to voice. The car glided through the quiet streets of the city, its tinted windows reflecting the golden blur of streetlights. Skylar sat beside Logan, her gaze lost to the world beyond the glass, while her mind drifted back to the glittering chaos they had just escaped.
The banquet still played vividly in her mind — the flashing cameras, the perfumed air, the endless smiles that never reached the eyes. The laughter that sounded too loud, too rehearsed. She remembered the way women’s gazes pierced her like daggers wrapped in silk, and how men’s eyes lingered too long. She remembered the whispers, the envy, the unspoken hierarchy that filled the
