Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Three
Alicia's POV
I carried the tea tray down the long hallway toward Pa Wood's study, my footsteps muffled by the expensive Persian runner that stretched the length of the corridor. The late afternoon sun filtered through the tall windows, casting elongated shadows that seemed to follow me as I walked. This had become part of my routine over the past few months, bringing Pa Wood his afternoon tea at exactly four o'clock, a ritual he insisted upon with the kind of quiet authority that made refusal impossible.
The door to his study was slightly ajar, and I knocked gently before pushing it open with my hip, careful not to spill the delicate china cups that rattled softly against their saucers. Pa Wood was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, his reading glasses perched on his nose as he reviewed what looked like contract documents, his weathered hands moving slowly across the pages as if each word required significant effort to process.
