Breakfast passed in silence.
Not the calm, comfortable kind, but the kind that pressed down on Ava's chest and made every small sound feel too loud. The clink of cutlery against porcelain. The quiet scrape of a chair leg. The soft sound of the room itself. the way the maid went in and out of the dinning room...
She could feel his gaze despite all of this..
It wasn't constant, but it was there, persistent, heavy and unmistakable. Each time she lifted her eyes to catch him, he wasn't looking. He would be focused on his plate, or his coffee, or nothing at all. As if she had imagined it.
But she hadn't.
Her grip tightened slightly around her fork.
Why was he looking at her like that?
The silence stretched, thick enough to choke on, until Ava couldn't take it anymore.
"What about Clara?"
Her voice cut through the quiet room, a little sharper than she intended. Her cutlery slipped from her fingers and clattered softly against the plate as she looked up at him.
