CH.7

DELLA

The heavy diamond on Mireille's ring caught the high crest of my cheekbone, splitting the delicate brown skin.

My head snapped sideways.

Pippin let out a frightened yowl, burrowing deeper into the folds of my coat.

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the distant murmur of the ocean tide.

A trickle of warm crimson traced down my cheek, dripping slowly onto my dark collar. My skin stung violently, radiating heat.

I didn't lift a hand to touch it.

Instead, a quiet, breathless sound escaped my throat. A trembling laugh. Then another. Tears spilled over my lashes, mixing with the blood on my skin.

"Delphine... you've lost your mind." Mireille stepped back with a sudden, unnerved flutter of genuine fear.

"No. I've just finally seen you clearly." A bitter, soul-crushing grief washed over me.

I wiped the blood from my cheek, my hazel eyes blazing.

Every instinct in my body screamed at me to turn around and walk away into the fog. To carry Pippin down the highway and never look back.

But as I took a half-step backward, my eyes landed on the polished silver hood of the Maybach.

The crushing weight of my reality settled back over my shoulders. Walking away from Mireille meant walking away from Theron.

The image of Theron sitting beside my hospital bed flashed in my mind. Theron, sacrificing his youth, feeding me ice chips, holding me up when my legs gave out.

Theron had delayed his entire military career for six months just to save me from a care facility.

He hadn't thrown my cat out. He hadn't slapped me.

Theron was just a man under his mother's overbearing thumb, a husband buckling under the pressure of his naval promotion and his family's debts.

I owed him my life.

I couldn't abandon my marriage and ruin his anniversary dinner just because his mother was cruel. If I could just endure this, if I could just look perfect tonight and stand by his side, maybe things would change.

Maybe Theron would see my devotion, remember the girl he had saved, and we could finally have the happy home I so desperately yearned for.

I swallowed my pride, my heart breaking for the man I still hoped to save and forced a facade of desperate, tragic resolve.

I clung tightly to the hope of fixing my marriage.

"Get in the car, Delphine." Mireille quickly reclaimed her haughty dominion, though her hands shook slightly.

As I approached the Maybach, Hayes immediately stepped forward.

He pulled the heavy rear door open, holding it wide.

"Thank you, Hayes." A profound, heavy exhaustion settled over me.

With that, I climbed into the cabin, placing Pippin gently on my knees.

The drive along the coastal marina was buried in a suffocating, soundless gloom.

Outside, the dense grey mist rolled off the harbour, clinging to the salt-bitten pines and turning the limestone buildings into washed-out silhouettes.

Inside, the only noise was the faint, wheezing rattle of Pippin breathing on my knees.

I kept one trembling hand buried deep within its fur, feeling the rapid, frail flutter of the cat's heart against my palm.

Unable to find solace in my current predicament, I pressed my forehead against the cold passenger glass, watching the droplets streak sideways.

The brief flash of fiery defiance that'd possessed me on the road had vanished, leaving behind an endless, hollow void.

I was just so impossibly tired.

Tired of the suffocating stench of Mireille's expensive tuberose perfume. Tired of the cold, draughty annex.

Tired of spending five long years begging for a few scraps of affection from a man who viewed me as a grotesque physical chore. A man I still refused to let go.

Beside me, Mireille didn't speak a single word.

Her hands were clamped on her handbag and her lips pressed into a thin line.

The mention of the Ravelle deeds had terrified her into absolute silence, but looking at her, I felt no victory.

I only felt an ache so profound it threatened to cave my ribs in.

I closed my eyes, letting a burning tear spill silently down my cheek, stinging against the cut along my bone.

Five years.

Five years of believing I was a burden to be tolerated, when the entire time, these people had been living like lords on my parents' blood.

The decision inside me didn't arrive with anger. It settled like an anchor dropping into dark, frozen water.

It was final.

I wouldn't divorce Theron. I couldn't.

The thought of severing that bond—of admitting that the boy who'd saved me was truly gone—felt like tearing out my own heart.

But I couldn't stay in that suffocating annex, couldn't keep living under Mireille's thumb, pretending everything was fine.

I would move back to my parents' manor.

Maybe the distance would wake Theron up. Maybe seeing me stand on my own, in my own house, would make him realize what he was losing.

Maybe it would finally force him to choose between his mother's manipulation and our marriage.