A mansion that looked like someone had torn out a castle and placed it on a hill. Stone and glass and too many windows. Arches. Balconies. Lights warmed from the inside like something out of a movie.
My mouth parted without a sound.
The car curved up the private drive and stopped in front of tall double doors. The driver got out. Opened our door. John gestured for me to go first.
“Come in,” he said softly. “Please.”
The doors opened, and I forgot how to breathe.
Marble floors that glowed. High ceilings that went up forever. Quiet air that felt expensive. Everything was so clean it almost didn’t feel real. No clutter. No mess. Just cold, grand, and echoing.
And right there, the first thing you saw when you stepped in washer.
A portrait that took up almost the entire entrance wall.
I stopped walking.
The frame alone looked like it cost more than my entire flat. Gold, carved, polished. And inside it, frozen in time, a bride and a groom.
The bride wore white. Not soft white. The kind of white that glowed. The dress was fitted, elegant, off-the-shoulder, with pearls at the collarbone. Dark hair swept up. Diamond earrings. Green eyes bright. Smile even brighter. She was laughing… not posed, actually laughing, like someone had just said something she loved.
And the groom.
Younger. Black hair, no grey. A hand around her waist. One at her back like he’d fight God if he had to. He wasn’t smiling with his mouth. He was smiling with everything else. His eyes,his stance, the way he leaned into her instead of her leaning into him.
They looked happy.
Not rich-happy.
In-love happy.
My chest hurt a little.
Behind me, John had gone silent, too. It wasn’t an awkward silence. It was a memory silence. The kind that hung in the air and made the whole room feel like you shouldn’t talk loudly.
I didn’t realise I was staring until he spoke.
“That’s Sofia.”
I turned to him.
His voice was softer than it had been outside the building. Softer than it’d been in the car. It wasn’t the CEO’s voice. It was something else that sounded cracked and reverent.
“Joshua’s mother,” he added.
Oh… he—
He never remarried…
My gaze flicked back up to the woman in white.
Up close, I could see it. Her mouth. Her cheekbones. The shape of her eyes.
Joshua had her eyes.
“She’s gorgeous,” I whispered.
It just fell out of me. Honest.
