Later that night, on the upstairs balcony outside my room, I heard voices below in the hall.
Nico first.
“You’re in love with her.”
Silence.
Then Roman, flat and controlled. “No.”
“Roman.”
“She’s August Harding’s daughter. She was brought here because of a debt. When the debt is settled, she leaves.”
“And if you don’t want her to?”
The pause that followed was so long it hurt.
“Especially if I don’t want her to.”
I sat motionless in the dark with the closed book in my lap and let the sentence cut exactly where it was meant to.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it was honest.
The next morning the house felt different.
Tighter. Final.
When Cora came to my room, she didn’t meet my eyes.
“The gentleman would like to see you in his office.”
Of course he would.
I took the long way downstairs through the library, just to stand for a second in the room I had reorganized. My notes were still tucked into the margins. My fingerprints were still on the spine of the atlas by the window. Evidence of me, everywhere and nowhere.
Roman was standing in the middle of the office when I entered.
Not behind his desk. Not by the window. Exposed.
“Your father paid,” he said.
The words struck with almost physical force.
“The debt is settled. You can leave today.”
I stared at him.
“That’s it?”
“This was always temporary.”
The fury that rose in me was so clean it steadied me.
I took one step closer. “You can say that if it helps you live with it.”
His jaw flexed.
