Serena
The garden was still when she turned away.
Not triumphant. Not composed.
Simply done.
Her steps were even, but her vision blurred — the lights from the ballroom smeared like spilled gold as she crossed back through the corridor.
Every sound felt distant: laughter, music, the rustle of silk.
None of it belonged to her anymore.
The truth had left her raw.
She had said the one thing she swore never to say, peeled open the scar she'd buried for years — and for what?
For him to look at her like that.
For Charlton Daniel to stare as if she were a stranger reciting madness.
The memory struck like a lash: his disbelief, his voice cracking on "That's impossible."
It should have made her angry. It only made her hollow.
Her heels clicked softly on marble as she entered one of the side corridors, where the lamps burned low and no one lingered.
The stillness folded around her.
Only then did her body shake.
