Something behind his eyes grew warm and quiet.
He had already known she would do exactly that.
Two weeks later, a formal invitation arrived at their small house.
A grand celebration dinner in the city.
Grace’s name was listed specifically as a featured guest.
Bernard’s name was on the list too.
He arrived in a borrowed suit slightly too large at the shoulders, shaking hands with anyone who looked wealthy, telling every group he met that he was a man of great regional importance.
The evening was magnificent. Long tables covered in white cloth. Candlelight. Important people in fine clothes laughing and talking.
Bernard was in the middle of an exaggerated story about his influence when every conversation in the room stopped at the same moment.
A man walked onto the stage.
Tall.
Perfectly dressed in a dark tailored suit.
Shoes polished like mirrors.
He moved with the calm, unshakable ease of a man who had nothing left to prove to anyone.
Bernard squinted from across the hall.
Something felt familiar.
The jaw. The hands. The quiet way his eyes swept the room until they landed on one face.
Grace’s.
