Chapter 47
Are You Done Talking?
I reached the heavy oak exit door, my palm already pressed to the cool brass handle. My heartbeat echoed in my ears, too loud, too fast out of place in the quiet bureaucratic stillness of the hall.
Then...
A low, controlled voice drifted across the corridor.
"Alayna."
I froze.
That voice. Calm. Precise. Cutting clean through the haze of the interview.
I turned.
Armand stood a few steps away, having exited through another door. The rigid posture of a board member was gone. It seemed that a quiet ease softened his shoulders. In the stark midday light filtering from the high windows, he looked more like the observant man from the cafe… not the untouchable son of a minister.
"A moment of your time?" he asked, not a request, not a demand. Something in-between. A gentle invitation.
I nodded and my throat tight.
"You answered well," he said finally. "Better than well. You gave them a spine, not just a script."
"Thanks."
