Camilla's POV
The entire banquet hall plunged into an eerie stillness the moment Gerald's voice boomed through the microphone. His tone was authoritative and clear, slicing through the ambient chatter like a knife through silk. There he stood on the elevated platform, imposing and self-assured, yet his gaze was trained solely on me.
In that instant, it seemed as though everyone else had vanished from existence. The soft murmur of conversations, the gentle clink of champagne flutes, even the subtle buzz from the ornate lighting fixtures overhead, everything dissolved into a suffocating quiet that made my chest feel tight.
Gerald Spike, the very man I had spent five years carefully avoiding, was staring at me as though he had just witnessed an apparition. Or perhaps worse, as though he had been anticipating this exact encounter all along.
Gradually, like ripples expanding across a still pond, the crowd began following the direction of his intense stare.
