That distance would make the ache fade.
That loving him quietly, from afar, would hurt less than hoping for a future he had already refused.
But even as she told herself these things, her heart whispered a truth she could not yet face.
She was carrying more than his child.
She was carrying the weight of a love that would not be so easily set aside.
But she did not go far.
Not at first.
Ariella walked until the corridor bent and the light from her chamber no longer spilled behind her. Only then did she stop, pressing her back to the cold stone and drawing a slow, shaking breath.
So this is it.
The thought arrived without drama. Without tears. Just a quiet finality that settled in her chest like a stone dropped into deep water.
She had asked him plainly.
He had answered plainly.
There was no betrayal in it. No cruelty. Only truth, delivered without pause, as if the answer had always been waiting at the tip of his tongue.
Nay.
The word echoed again, stripped of tone, stripped of meaning beyond what it was. A boundary. A line he would not cross.
Ariella closed her eyes.
She could still feel him. The heat of his body. The weight of his presence. The way he had kissed her as if he had missed her in ways he did not yet know how to admit.
And still, when it mattered most, he had chosen the rule.
Her hand drifted again to her stomach, this time consciously. The motion steadied her. Anchored her.
“I will nae beg,” she whispered into the quiet corridor.
She would not beg for love or permission. And she would not beg for the life already growing inside her. The realization did not come with fireworks. It came with clarity.
She had been waiting for Maxwell to decide. Waiting for him to change. Waiting for him to name the future she already carried in her body.
But the waiting was over. She adjusted the ring on his finger. Then adjusted it back. Then straightened, lifting her chin, and continued down the corridor.
Instead of returning to her chamber, she turned toward the small library.
The door creaked softly as she pushed it open, the familiar scent of old leather and dust greeting her like an old friend. She lit a single candle and crossed to the shelf she knew by heart now.
The McNeill lineage.
She drew one of the books free and carried it to the table, settling into the chair with care. Her fingers brushed the pages, flipping past names she recognized now. Men who had fought. Women who had married. Children who had lived just long enough to be remembered.
She found her own name again.
Ariella McNeill.
The ink was still dark. Still fresh.
