“Oh miss—what has happened?”
“Not tonight,” Fiona said softly. “Please. I only want to be alone.”
“But miss—”
“Please, Molly.”
The maid withdrew reluctantly, closing the door behind her.
Fiona remained standing in the centre of the room for a long moment, staring at the bed she had not slept in for days.
It looked unfamiliar now. Cold. Untouched.
Everything felt cold.
She undressed without thinking, shedding her damp cloak and muddied gown where they fell. Then she climbed into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, staring at the ceiling above her.
She did not cry. She was too tired for tears.
She simply lay there in the darkness and waited for the dawn.
Tomorrow, she would fight. Tomorrow, she would find some way to reach him, to break through the walls he had rebuilt around himself. Tomorrow, she would refuse to surrender the life they had begun to build.
But tonight—
Tonight, she would allow herself to grieve.
For the happiness they had found. For the future he had just cast aside.
And for the man she loved, who was too afraid to believe he deserved to be saved.
Outside, the wind howled along the cliffs, and the sea broke restlessly against the rocks far below.
And somewhere within the depths of the castle, Christian Hale sat alone in the darkness, the old, familiar voices rising again—the ones that had long insisted he was a man best kept apart from happiness, and that loving him could only ever end in ruin.
Chapter Fifteen
Fiona did not sleep.
She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling until her eyes burned. The water stain shaped like a rabbit seemed almost to mock her, a reminder of simpler hours when her only concerns had been a sprained ankle and an intimidating host.
How naïve she had been. How foolishly, wonderfully naïve.
The hours crept past. Midnight came and went, marked by the distant chiming of the grandfather clock in the entrance hall. One o’clock. Two. Three. The castle settled into the deep stillness of the small hours, that strange, breathless quiet when the world seemed to pause between one day and the next.
And still Fiona did not sleep.
She could not stop replaying the scene on the cliff. Christian’s face in the moonlight, drawn tight with anguish. His voice, raw and breaking, telling her to forget him
There is no us. There never should have been.
The words echoed in her mind, each repetition a fresh wound. She wanted to be angry—part of her was angry still, that hot coal of fury glowing beneath her breastbone—but mostly she was simply, devastatingly sad.
Sad for herself, for the future she had glimpsed and lost.
Sad for him, for the boy who had been taught he was monstrous and the man who had never quite stopped believing it.
Sad for both of them—and the love that should have been enough, but somehow wasn’t.
