Sandra POV
I woke up hopeful, and I couldn't explain it.
Not the cautious, careful kind of hope I'd carried into yesterday, the kind that braces itself on the way in. This was something lighter, sitting in my chest before I'd even fully opened my eyes, and it didn't make any sense given the facts of my situation, which were: I was in a marriage to a man I didn't know, in a house that wasn't mine, with a life that had been assembled around me like a stage set while I was looking the other way.
And yet. The stars had been good. The conversation had been good. And I'd woken up to sunlight coming through curtains that were clearly custom, lying in a bed so expensive it had been actively trying to comfort me all night.
Maybe that counted for something.
I reached for Alexander's side of the
