When Clara Lynn finally processed what she was seeing, her voice nearly cracked.
“Professor Harrison?!”
The man kneeling in front of her was indeed Michael Harrison, her former Faculty Advisor at Haven University—a man who, only days ago, had delivered her expulsion notice with bureaucratic indifference, speaking in the detached tone of someone who had long ago learned to confuse compliance with professionalism.
Now he was on his knees.
Inside the villa, Conrad Stone remained seated, tea in hand, expression calm, as though this unfolding spectacle were merely another predictable variable in a larger equation.
Only then did Clara fully understand what he meant by “waiting.”
They hadn’t been waiting for an apology born of conscience.
They had been waiting for pressure to ripple throug
