By the time Alex came downstairs for dinner, she already felt outnumbered. The Ashfords hadn’t done anything overtly hostile. That would have been easier to manage.
No, the danger of families like this existed in subtler things. The long glances exchanged across tables, the conversations layered with implication instead of accusation, the unspoken understanding that everyone in the room had known each other for decades while she remained the single unfamiliar variable dropped carefully into the center of it all.
Margaret had built the evening deliberately. Alex realized that the moment she entered the dining room.
The table itself stretched nearly the full length of the room beneath low golden light and towering windows blackened by rain outside, polished silver and crystal reflecting s
