The sentence visibly loosened something in his shoulders—relief, perhaps, or the comfortable assumption that the matter had been properly resolved. That I had accepted my place in the hierarchy of his affections.
That I would continue to accept it.
The drive back felt impossibly long.
He attempted conversation. I responded only when courtesy demanded it, offering nothing more than the bare minimum required by propriety. Streetlights slid past the rain-streaked windows one by one, each one a countdown.
To what, I did not yet know.
I did not return to his residence. Instead, I directed the driver to the Ashford estate—to Family headquarters.
The great hall stood nearly empty at this hour, vast and cold as a mausoleum. Marble floors gleamed like black ice beneath the crystal chandeliers. Shadows pooled in corners where the light could not reach.
Margaret Ashford waited by the grand staircase, as though she had known I would come. When her gaze found me, it was sharp as a stiletto—appraising, calculating, searching for weakness.
"You should not be here," she said. Her voice echoed against stone. "You should be with your betrothed. The alliance requires your presence at his side."
I inclined my head, keeping my voice steady. "I've only come to collect a few things."
She did not stop me. She did not ask questions.
Perhaps she already knew. Perhaps she had always known.
I climbed the stairs to the room that had once been called mine. The door opened onto memories I no longer wished to claim—childhood drawings tucked into a drawer, a music box that had belonged to someone I used to be.
I took only two things.
I left everything else to rot.
At the doorway, I paused. The woman who had raised me—who had chosen Silvia over me at every turn, who had looked through me as though I were made of glass—stood exactly where I had left her.
"Goodbye," I said.
She did not respond.
She did not even lift her eyes.
By the time I returned to Giorgio's residence, the night had settled into its deepest silence.
He stood in the living room as though nothing had transpired—as though the rain and the revelation and the quiet death of whatever had existed between us were merely inconveniences to be forgotten.
In his hands, he held a gown.
Brand new. Exquisite. The color of fresh blood.