LAVENDER POV
I should have known peace would not last, It never does, not for people like me. The Robinson estate is quiet in the late afternoon, the kind of quiet that feels cultivated, deliberate. Sunlight filters through tall windows, gilding the polished floors and antique furniture with a glow that feels undeserved, like beauty borrowed rather than owned.
I sit in the sitting room Margaret insisted I use, my feet tucked beneath me, a book resting unread in my lap. My mind refuses to settle. It keeps circling the same thoughts, the same fragile realizations. That Alex cared that his fear was real, that he had feelings for me, that what we had meant something to him, that Margaret had chosen me.
Safe, the word feels too bold to say aloud. I press my palm against my stomach again, fee
