Chapter 50: The Uninvited Sovereign
The sudden silence in the grand ballroom was so dense that the low drone of the ventilation ducts sounded like distant thunder. Three thousand guests stood frozen along the polished limestone floorboards, their conversations dying on their lips as the displaced autumn wind swept through the breached brass portals.
At the head of the cleared red carpet, Harrison Drake narrowed his cold gray eyes, leaning forward against the brass railing of the elevated champagne terrace. The condescending smirk on his face flickered for a fraction of a second as his gaze raked over the midnight wool tuxedo and the carved jawline of the young man walking down the central corridor.
Harrison recognized that posture instantly from Camilla's frantic descriptions outside Ma
