"Choices I profited from." He turned away, unable to bear the look in her eyes. "Maybe Dalton was right. Maybe I am just a parasite dressed in fine clothes, feeding off other people's weaknesses."
"Andrew, please." Her voice wavered. "You're not making sense. You need to rest, let yourself heal."
"What I need is to be left alone." The words came out cold, final.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
"Left alone," Isobel repeated slowly. "Is that what you want?"
"Yes." He didn't look at her. Couldn't look at her. "I need time to think. To figure out—" He waved a hand vaguely. "To figure out who I am now. What I do next."
"I see." Her voice had gone very quiet. "And where do I fit into this equation? Into your time to think and figure things out?"
"Isobel."
"No, please. Enlighten me." She moved into his line of sight, forcing him to look at her. "I'm your wife. We've spent weeks building something between us. Something real. Or at least, I thought it was real. Was I wrong about that too?"
"That's not fair."
"Fair?" She laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You want to talk about fair? I stood in a ballroom full of people tonight, listening to them whisper about my husband and some woman and a fight. I smiled and played the gracious hostess while wondering if you were hurt or dying somewhere. I waited up all night, terrified and angry and so desperately worried that I couldn't breathe properly. And now you're standing here telling me you need to be alone to figure out who you are?"
"I'm sorry," he said weakly.
"You're so terrified of being your father that you've made yourself a prisoner." Isobel's eyes were bright with unshed tears. "You've spent twelve years proving you're different from him, but you've never actually believed it yourself. And now that the Fox is gone, you're falling apart because without it, you have to face the truth—that you are who you are, club or no club. That you've always been different from him. That you've always been enough."
"I don't know that." The admission felt like tearing out his own heart.
She stared at him for a long moment, and he saw something shift in her expression. The softness that had been there earlier, the concern, the care, it all crystallized into something harder.
"Then you need to figure that out," she said quietly. "On your own. Because I can't do it for you, Andrew. I can stand beside you. I can support you. I can love you through the darkness. But I can't make you believe you're worthy of that love. Only you can do that."
She moved toward the door, and as she made to leave, his voice called after her.
"Where are you going?"
"To pack." Her voice was eerily calm. "You said you need to be alone to figure out who you are. So, I'm giving you what you asked for."
"Isobel, wait—" He started after her, but she whirled around, one hand raised.
"Don't." The single word stopped him in his tracks. "Don't tell me you didn't mean it. Don't try to take it back now. You've made your choice, Andrew. You always make this choice. The club, your identity crisis, your fear—it all comes before me. Before us. And I'm done accepting that."
"That's not true."
"I have spent my entire life coming second," Isobel said, her voice shaking now. "Second to my father's gambling. Second to his needs, his pride, his schemes. I swore when I married you that I wouldn't accept that again. That I wouldn't let myself be an afterthought. But that's exactly what I am, aren't I? An afterthought. Something to deal with after you've finished sorting out the important things."
She looked over her shoulder. Tears streaked down her cheeks. "I won't be your caretaker while you wallow in self-pity about losing a building."
"It was more than just a building."
"It was not!" She spun around, her composure finally cracking. "It was bricks and wood and glass, Andrew! Yes, it was also your life's work and your identity and your proof of worth. But at the end of the day, it was a building. A thing. And you're ready to throw away our marriage, throw away me, because you're so fixated on what that thing meant that you can't see what you still have."
"I'm not throwing anything away. I just need time."
"Time alone," she finished for him. "Time to figure yourself out without the burden of a wife who expects you to actually be present in your own marriage. Well, congratulations, Your Grace. You're getting exactly what you asked for."
She turned and walked out.
Andrew stood frozen, listening to her footsteps echo up the stairs, hearing movement from her chambers above. The opening and closing of drawers. The rustle of fabric as she packed.
