2

My chest seized up.

Dante glanced at me and explained, "Vivian picked the rings."

Camille's mouth curved. "So she knows you like pink diamonds.

"It figures. Girls from ordinary families pay closer attention."

She stepped forward and took my hand, her voice gentle. "Vivian, don't worry. Dante and I are in the past.

"It's just hard not to think about back then when I see rings I recognize."

In the first design, I had chosen emeralds.

My mother used to say the color was like my eyes.

Once the first version was settled, Dante looked at the finished piece and said pink diamonds suited me better.

I was a little sorry about it, but there was a sweetness in my chest.

Before that, I had always assumed he was marrying me because the Family pushed him into it.

But he had stepped in to choose the ring himself, and it made me believe this marriage held a place in his heart too.

Looking at it now, he chose pink diamonds purely because Camille liked them.

There was only one explanation for why the ring had come back the wrong size and had to be altered.

The measurement he'd given without thinking was Camille's.

"Have one of the maids do the room. I'm going to rest."

Dante looked displeased at that.

But when he saw how pale I was and how badly I was struggling to walk, he said nothing in the end.

He probably assumed I was only defying him because I was sick.

After all, up to then I had done everything he told me.

But now I did not want him anymore.

After Camille moved in, she carried herself exactly like the lady of the house.

Everything in the common rooms had to be rearranged to her taste.

She even insisted on having first pick of the jewelry the housekeeper brought over.

She thought she had beaten me. I just could not be bothered to fight her for any of it.

When Dante was in the study talking business, she walked in with a coffee without even knocking.

The thing Dante hated most was being interrupted while he was working.

All I had ever done was bring him his medicine on time, and he shouted me out of the room for it.

He told me I was an ordinary person and had no right to see the Family's business partners.

But a while passed and the study stayed perfectly quiet.

Before long Camille came out beaming.

So he simply thought I was not fit to stand beside him.

After the meeting broke up, Dante asked me the same way he always did, "Vivian, is dinner ready?"

"No. I'm going out in a bit. Have one of the maids cook."

He frowned. "You know I can't stand their cooking."

My fingers curled in slightly. "I have to go print some documents at the university."

Dante forced his temper down. "Dinner for two won't take you long."

I picked up my car keys and walked straight out. "The two of you can go eat out."

For five years I had waited on him with everything I had.

Cooking, cleaning, ironing his shirts, delivering his papers...

There were maids in the house, but he made me do all of it myself. He said those were a wife's duties.

He had gotten so used to me keeping his life in order that the first time I refused, he assumed I was picking a fight.

The air in the house dropped below freezing.

Camille came out to smooth it over. "It's fine, I'll cook. You haven't had my cooking in a long time."

Dante refused immediately. "The kitchen is full of grease and smoke. You're not going in there. We'll eat out."

Before the door shut, I heard Dante say coldly, "No manners at all."

At the university, Professor Nolan was sorting through my file and asked me, curious, "When you graduated I told you to go on for a master's and you turned it down. What changed your mind?"

I smiled. "Life has a way of changing."

I had offers from several schools when I graduated.

But Dante wanted to get married as soon as possible, so I turned all of them down.

I used to think that marrying up, to someone at Dante's level, meant making a lot of compromises.

Only now did I understand that a relationship where the two sides are not equal can never last.

When I got home, I found all my clothes dumped outside the door.

The closet was hung wall to wall with Camille's things.

Dante leaned against the doorframe and explained, "The housekeeper brought over too much of Camille's wardrobe by mistake. There was nowhere to put it.

"Your clothes are old anyway. Keeping them just takes up space."

Only a few outfits I wore often were left, shoved into a corner of the closet.

"Aren't there plenty of empty rooms?"

"The lighting in your closet is better for looking in the mirror."

I nodded and packed those few outfits into my suitcase.

Dante had not expected me to be so calm. His face went dark and he grabbed my arm. "What exactly are you trying to do? You haven't smiled once in two days."

My expression did not change. "I'm doing what you told me to do. Taking better care of Camille."

Camille came out in a bathrobe and mentioned it in passing. "While you were out, the planner came by to go over the schedule with Dante.

"He changed a few things. He's having the ceiling redone as a diamond starlight canopy."

Something in me flickered with confusion.

Dante had never cared about the wedding setup. Why would he change it now?

Camille saw that I did not understand, and she laughed. "Back in high school, we snuck off campus to look at the stars."

She turned to Dante, her expression full of tenderness. "He said that one day he'd propose to me under a sky like that."