Chapter 30 The Mask Of Power

• The dress arrived without explanation. There was no message from him, no call, no note slipped under her door or left on her pillow. It appeared while she was in the shower, hanging from the brass hook outside her closet like a decision she had already made. She noticed it as the steam curled past her, her towel clutched beneath her arms, droplets of water running in quiet lines down her back.
• She stared at it for several seconds without moving. The black garment bag bore no designer logo, no receipt folded neatly at the bottom, no name to trace its arrival. It spoke in silence, not absence. It was deliberate. It was intentional. It was his way of speaking without words. She didn’t need a signature to know where it came from. No one else chose her clothes without asking. No one else told her where to be without saying it aloud.
• She reached for the zipper and slid it down slowly, as if opening a secret he had meant for her alone.