Clara’s POV
The lobby café is nearly empty at seven in the morning, just a few early commuters nursing coffee before the workday swallows them whole. I check my reflection in the darkened window twice on the walk over, smoothing my blazer, trying to look like a woman who hasn’t spent half the night crying into her pillow over a man she has absolutely no right to want.
I spot Margaret Cole immediately, seated at a corner table, upright and elegant in a way that makes me instinctively straighten my own posture as I approach. She’s dressed impeccably for seven in the morning, pearls at her throat, not a hair out of place, exactly the kind of composed I’ve spent six years trying and failing to master myself.
“Ms. Bennett.” She gestures at the chair across from her, studying me with an inten
