"No,"
Violet replied with a faint, stubborn smile that held warmth yet defiance.
"I'm not leaving until I see Taylor.
Leaving now would mean returning to the same dead end.
The doctors had been clear—her son Ace's condition couldn't wait any longer.
She'd made up her mind before coming: no matter how long it took, she *would* see Taylor.
"Miss Violet, forgive my bluntness," the butler said, his polite detachment cooling further at her refusal.
"Mr. Taylor has no wish to meet you. Waiting changes nothing."
His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her.
"Just as it changed nothing years ago... when you treated him the same way."
The memory was etched in his mind—Taylor standing outside Violets door in the pouring rain for a day and a night, until illness felled him.
And through it all, that door had remained shut.
"If you chose to abandon him then," the butler pressed, "why seek him out now?"
The butler's tone grew heavier.
