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One Betrayal Is Enough Chapter 27
A hundred years after the divorce, I went back to London.The city had become almost unrecognizable.Driverless cars ran along the old streets, the company that made the documentary had folded long ago, and the arguments about Adrian and me had turned into archive material.Young people occasionally saw our photographs in a museum.They knew the Duke of Blackwood had once had a famous marriage, and they no longer raged over a collapsed love story the way people had a century before.Time's greatest kindness to humans is that most pain eventually leaves along with the people who lived it.Vampires remember.I went back to London for Victor's funeral.Seventy years earlier he had lost the ability to turn in an accident, and in the end he chose to die the way a human does.Late in his life he wrote to apologize to me.He admitted that he hadn't helped Adrian hide the affair because he truly believed a human lover didn't matter.He had envied Adrian for having a faithful marriage that none
One Betrayal Is Enough Chapter 26
"I didn't give up seventy years over one mistake."I said it calmly, in front of the camera."Those seventy years happened, whole. Nobody can take them away.""What I ended were the countless years left after the betrayal."The reporter asked, "And if the duke really did change afterward?""He did change.""Then why didn't you reconsider?""Because change is his responsibility to his own life, not a prize I have to pay out by taking him back.""Some relationships can be repaired after a wrong, and some people are willing to rebuild trust. That is their choice.""My choice is that once is already enough."In the month after the interview aired, I got many letters from strangers.One woman said she had finally left a partner who had deceived her over and over.Another said she had chosen to stay, but had asked for the first time that he genuinely do the work of rebuilding trust.I never held my own choice up as a standard for anyone.Leaving isn't inherently nobler than forgiving, and fo
One Betrayal Is Enough Chapter 25
Twenty years is short for a vampire.Short enough that it leaves no line on a face and no weariness in the body.And long enough to bring an abandoned house back to life.The museum my mother never finished finally opened.The first and second floors show work by young artists, the garden became an open-air theater, and the cellar keeps a fully blacked-out space where vampire artists can rest through the day.In our first year we received forty applications.By the twentieth, the Hartwell youth art program had six branches across Europe.We have helped a vampire violinist whose family forbade her to perform, and funded a human artist who lost both hands in a war and began composing with his voice instead.One year a young painter asked me why the museum's emblem is an open window.I told her it was the only thing my mother drew three times on her plans.Later I found my own explanation for it.A door needs someone else's permission to open. A window lets a person trapped in a room see
One Betrayal Is Enough Chapter 24
We met at a restaurant near the old house by the sea.It only opens at night, and the owner is an older vampire. He knew me and showed no unnecessary curiosity.Adrian arrived early.He brought no flowers, and he wasn't wearing his ring.There were two glasses of warmed blood on the table, one at the temperature I like, the other untouched.I sat down across from him."Thank you for coming," he said."This is the last time.""I know."He didn't talk about how much we had loved each other, and he didn't ask whether I missed him.After a silence, Adrian set a key on the table."The Paris apartment is fully in your name now. This is the last spare key."I took it."Is there anything else?""Yes."He raised his eyes."I always assumed your loyalty couldn't run out.""You loved me for seventy years, you risked your life for me, and you chose to trust me over and over.""I treated all of that as something I could never lose.""So I started testing it. I started hiding things. I started telli
One Betrayal Is Enough Chapter 23
Six months after the divorce, Claire gave a live interview.The program was promoted with a deliberately inflammatory title.My Two Years With the Vampire Duke: Was I Really Only His Mistress?I hadn't planned to watch.Then Helen told me Claire had described how the Blackwood family concealed things, which might affect the foundation's internal review.The Claire in that interview looked far more worn than she had at the anniversary dinner.She wore hardly any makeup, and there was no necklace covering the side of her neck anymore."I knew he was married."She didn't deny it when the host asked the first question."I also knew the duchess wouldn't accept a third person.""Then why start?"Claire was quiet for a long time."Because he made me feel that I was special.""Everyone told me the duke would never divorce, but he was willing to give me things an ordinary person never gets in a lifetime.""A house, a career, protection, and his blood.""I thought if enough time passed, he'd be
One Betrayal Is Enough Chapter 22
The mediation was scheduled after sunset.Adrian and I sat on opposite sides of the same table for the first time since Paris.Three months on, he hadn't aged, but he was noticeably thinner. His hair, always immaculate, was slightly disordered, and he still wore his wedding ring on his left hand.He almost stood up the moment I came in."Evelyn."I sat down beside my lawyer."Let's begin."The mediator went through the asset inventory first.Adrian objected to none of the divisions, and even volunteered to give up the Paris apartment and several disputed pieces from the collection.When they reached the marriage itself, he finally spoke."I'm requesting an extension of the cooling-off period.""On what grounds?" the mediator asked."We lived together for seventy years."Adrian looked at me."I admit I broke my marriage vows, and I'm not asking Evelyn to forgive me now. But seventy years shouldn't end in a few months.""It didn't end in a few months," I said."Adrian, you took two years
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