The Wife He Thought Was Dead
“If I hide from what I did, I’m still the coward I always was. I don’t want your pity, Clara. I want your respect. And I can only earn that by telling the whole truth, no matter how much it burns.”
Clarissa looked at him really looked at him—not as the husband who had betrayed her, not as the heir to a corrupt empire, but as the man who had taken a bullet so she could live. She saw the exhaustion in his eyes, the quiet dignity in the way he stood despite the pain, the genuine remorse that seemed to radiate from him like heat from a fire. Something inside her softened, just a little—an opening in the ice she had built around her heart for three long years.