Chapter 155

She nodded again, finally admitting her fear under William's steady, intense gaze. Of course she was scared. Her life had barely been snatched back from death. She knew exactly how precious it was. She’d seen how brutally her parents died. That happened when she was just six, and from that moment on, she was forced to grow up knowing what death really meant. And because she understood, she could never just brush off their deaths like they didn’t matter. They died in such a strange, senseless way—how was she supposed to ignore that? Just pretend everything was fine, stay lost in William’s love like none of it ever happened, and keep being “Mrs. Harding”? Right now, that fear and grief from when she was a little girl hit her all over again—along with twenty years’ worth of frustration and helplessness bubbling to the surface. Losing the two people who loved her most had left a dull, aching pain that never really went away. And now, all that pain and powerlessness exploded at once. The te