Performative Warmth

~Kaelen~

I smelled the flowers before I opened the study door.

That was the first sign. My study had never smelled like flowers. It smelled like leather and old paper and the specific kind of quiet that came from nobody having been in it since I left in the morning. That was intentional. The West Wing was mine. The study was mine. It was the one room in this entire estate that functioned exactly t