He glanced past the half-closed door, jaw ticking. Tessa had gone downstairs and hadn't come back yet. The silence she left behind echoed louder than the conversation he was enduring. On the line, Helena's voice broke the stillness with carefully measured formality.
"Would it be appropriate, Your Highness," she asked delicately, "to send aides ahead to begin preparations for the Throne Hall?"
Parker exhaled—slow, deep, like a man reeling in the last shred of his patience.
"You're seriously asking me that?" he said, voice carved in ice and sarcasm. "What exactly do you think? That I was gonna fluff the silk and iron the banners myself? Do the fuckin' dusting with a feather duster and ask my personal maids to sweep the damn marble?"
He paced toward the window, eyes scanning the estate grounds that wasn't sprawled beneath the morning mist like a kingdom caught mid-breath anymore.
"These people," he muttered under his breath. "Have they forgotten who I am—or worse, who they are?"
