Todos los capítulos de Bound to the Devil I Wed: Capítulo 41 - Capítulo 45

The greenhouse became Elena's project in the way a wounded thing sometimes became a shelter, unexpectedly, then all at once. At first, she told herself it was only something to do. A ruined glasshouse on the north side of the estate, half-swallowed by ivy and years of neglect, should not have mattered much to her. It was only stone and cracked panes and ironwork gone soft with rust. But it had been handed to her in the only language Luca seemed to trust: action instead of apology, provision instead of explanation. So she went. The first morning, Marta escorted her through the north gardens with two guards trailing at a distance she tried not to resent. The greenhouse stood beyond a row of old cypress and a dry fountain, hidden enough that Elena understood why the disrepair had been allowed to deepen. It had once been beautiful. There was no mistaking that. The frame still carried elegance in its bones - arched glass panels, black iron supports, pale climbing roses long gone wild a

That night, Luca came to her rooms long after midnight smelling of cold air, smoke, and the faint metallic trace of blood. Elena was awake. Not because she meant to be. Because sleep had never come properly after the courtyard. She had changed into a cream nightgown and sat in the small sitting room beside the dying fire with a book open on her lap and no memory at all of what she'd read. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the kneeling man again. Heard Luca's voice asking who had ordered the shot on his wife. My wife. The words had lodged somewhere under her ribs and refused to move. When the knock came, soft and unexpected, her heart jumped once before settling into a harder rhythm. She opened the door herself. Luca stood there alone. His coat was unbuttoned, dark hair slightly disordered, his expression carved into that familiar unreadable severity. But tonight there was something else too. Not just fatigue. A tension that seemed wound tighter than usual under the skin

The next morning, Luca was impossible.Not absent.That would have been easier.He was present.Completely.At breakfast. In the corridor. In the west hall while speaking to two of his men. At lunch, where he sat at the head of the smaller table and discussed shipments as if he had not kissed her breathless against a chair twelve hours earlier.He didn't look away from her.He also did not speak of it.Elena hated him for that a little.Possibly more because she admired it.Adriana noticed something by midmorning. Of course she did. She noticed the way Elena went too still when Luca entered a room. The way Luca's gaze found Elena before anyone else and then moved on too carefully. The way silence between them had turned dense enough to be visible if one looked directly at it.But if Adriana knew, she said nothing.Camilla, however, noticed the atmosphere without understanding its cause, which made her brittle all day.By afternoon, Elena had escaped to the greenhouse for air.The work