Chapter 28 The Boardroom

Chapter 28: 28 The Boardroom

The morning arrived with the gray, indifferent light of a Parisian dawn. I hadn’t slept. The penthouse was silent, but I felt Charles’s presence in every room, a heavy, watchful weight that followed me from the spare bedroom to the kitchen where a silent maid had laid out coffee and croissants. I was a guest, but it felt more like being a specimen under glass.

He found me staring out the window, the city spread out below like a map of a kingdom I was about to be introduced to. He was already dressed, a suit so perfectly tailored it seemed like a second skin, his tie a slash of blood red against the crisp white of his shirt. He looked like he was going to a battle, not a meeting.

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