A MADMAN'S OBSESSION
Dinner with him was no longer companionship, it was an obligation just for her survival.
Still, a fragile thought tried to take shape. Maybe tonight could be different. Maybe being outside, even briefly, she could be free. Maybe...
But she stopped herself.
She knew better than to believe that.
Marceline reached past the safe dresses, the modest ones Rafael approved of, and drew out the black dress she had not worn since before her marriage. The color felt right.
Black, mourning, not for a man, but for the life she had lost. For the woman she had been before she learned to shrink.