Chapter 2 - The Silence of the Heir
The water soaked through Sophia's cream silk dress, the heavy dampness clinging to her ribs like ice. Twelve pairs of eyes—all belonging to women who measured human worth by portfolio size and lineage—scrutinized her every movement, searching for a breakdown. But Sophia did not cry. Her spine, straight and unyielding, remained locked in place.
Beatrice Kensington lowered the empty crystal pitcher, setting it onto the glass-topped table with a deliberate, echoing clink.
"Well?" Beatrice asked, her voice dripping with artificial sympathy. "I suppose you expect my son to rush in here like some medieval knight and rescue you from your own lack of social grace?"
Sophia looked down at the bruised lemon resting near her shoe, then back up at Beatrice. The humiliation was absolute, but beneath it burned something far more volatile. A cold, quiet realization was settling over her: the worst thing wasn't that Beatrice had humiliated her. The worst thing was that Theo had left her here to endure it.
"I don't need a knight, Mrs. Kensington," Sophia said, her voice steady and eerily calm. "I need a dry towel."
Before Beatrice could fire off another cutting remark, a low murmur rippled through the gallery of women seated by the orchids.
Footsteps approached from the hallway—quick, measured, and entirely unhurried.
Sophia didn't turn around immediately. She half-expected it to be Theodore, looking flustered, muttering something about an international corporate emergency and begging both sides to calm down.
Instead, the double doors of the conservatory swung wide open.
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It wasn't Theo.
It was Arthur Hayes.
