LAURA ROBINSON’S POV
I have survived wars no one ever wrote about. Boardrooms drenched in bloodless cruelty. Smiles that hid knife. Men who underestimated me because I was a woman and paid for it with their empires. I have buried scandals, broken alliances, and rewritten futures with nothing but strategy and patience.
So when Alexander dares to threaten me, because of a girl whose name barely carries weight in our world, I do not panic.
I plan.
The study is silent except for the faint ticking of the antique clock behind my desk. Time has always obeyed me, I trained it to. I glance at my reflection in the glass cabinet opposite, controlled, elegant, unyielding. A woman who has never lost what truly mattered.
Not yet, Lavender Brooks is a weakness masquerading as innocence. And weakness
