جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 50

​August had been standing in the corner for five minutes, unmoving, his phone gripped so tightly in his hand that the casing groaned.​He watched them.​He watched the way his grandfather leaned forward, eyes sparkling with a mischievous vitality that August hadn't seen in years. He watched Spring laughing without restraint as she tried to navigate a chessboard. The scene was domestic, warm, and utterly revolting to him.​How? The question hammered against his skull. How could his grandfather, the iron-fisted patriarch of the Harrington line, accept this girl so easily? The same man who had treated Winter like a common intruder.​A year ago, these very walls had echoed with a different kind of sound. August remembered the shouting. He remembered the way his grandfather had insulted Winter, calling her unworthy of the Harrington name, until August had erupted in a rage he couldn't control. They had quarreled until the air felt thin. Winter had fled the mansion in tears, her face fille

​The drive back from the Old Mansion was a descent into a different kind of darkness. The moon, which had looked so hopeful over Grandpa’s rose garden, now felt like a cold, watching eye. Inside the car, the air was a gloomy sensation that seemed to radiate off August in waves. It was the dangerous, suffocating calm that comes just before a hurricane breaks the shore.​August sat in the corner. He looked like a man being consumed from the inside out.​"Did... did Grandpa say something?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I had to gather every ounce of my courage just to break the silence.​He didn't answer. He just stared straight ahead, his jaw locked so tightly I thought I could hear the bone grinding.​It’s okay, I told myself, clutching my hand to my chest. I knew this was coming. This behavior wasn't new. August was a pendulum, swinging between icy indifference and explosive heat. I tried to look out my own window, focusing on the city, trying to convince myself that I didn't

​The piano had become my only sanctuary. Ever since that night in the car—the tears, the desperate hug...August had retreated behind a wall of icy silence.He ignored me during the few moments our paths crossed.​I played until my fingertips ached, the notes of a melancholy nocturne echoing through the empty hallways. I was bored. No, it was more than boredom. It was a slow, agonizing erosion of my sense of self. I was a woman with a $300,000-a-month price tag and absolutely no purpose.​The sound of tires screeching against the driveway snapped me out of my trance. My heart did a familiar, unwelcome skip. He was home.​I stood up, smoothing my dress, and met him at the base of the grand staircase. He looked exhausted, his tie loosened and his jacket draped over his arm, but his aura was as sharp as a piece of glass.​"August," I said, stepping into his path. "We need to talk."​He stopped, his gaze raking over me. "What do you want, Spring? Is the $300,000 monthly allowance not hit

​“Look at the glare, August. Just look at it. The sun was hitting the lens directly. This could be a smudge, or literally any woman with dark hair standing on that pass.”​Rush leaned over the table, his thumb hovering over the tablet screen. The image was a mess of high-contrast pixels; a grainy, over-sharpened still taken from a distance under the harsh midday sun. In the center of the frame, a woman who bore a resemblance to Spring stood in the middle of the winding road. A few yards away, the unmistakable silver silhouette of Winter’s car was captured in a blur of motion.​“It’s her,” August said, his voice cold. He didn't look at the screen. He had memorized every pixel of that daylight horror until it was etched onto the back of his eyelids.​“It was broad daylight, August!” Rush hissed, throwing his hands up. “Winter was speeding through a slow-zone. If Spring is standing there in the middle of the afternoon, it doesn't prove she caused a crash. It proves she was there. People

The days that followed were a masterclass in psychological warfare. In the Harrington manor, the silence pressed against my lungs until every breath felt like a labor. I had so many unanswered question bubbling up my mind. ​August had become a shadow who lived in a different dimension. He started his avoiding game again. I spent my mornings at the piano, the notes turning from classical sonatas into mourning cries. When my fingers bled, I turned to the kitchen. ​I poured my desperation into the food. I cooked dishes that required hours of focus. From making delicate soufflés, hand-rolled pasta, rich reductions to infusing them with the silent words I wasn't allowed to speak. I would ask Rucku or Mrs. Gable to serve August. ​And every night, the result was the same. ​I would hear the scrape of his chair, the briefest pause as he looked at the plate, and then the thud of the plate hitting the bottom of the trash can. He didn't even taste it. He threw away my effort, my pea