She released my shirt and stepped back. Back again. Until her spine hit the wall. She leaned against it, watching me like I was a stranger.
"Visitation rights," she repeated softly. "Visitation rights."
"Olivia."
"Get out."
The words hit like a bullet through my chest.
"You're telling me to get out," I repeated.
"Get out."
I stood there, watching her tears finally fall. One. Two. Three. She didn't wipe them. Just watched me with those dead green eyes.
"I'll arrange it," I said, my voice like it belonged to someone else. "The visits. I'll arrange them."
She said nothing.
I waited a few seconds.
Then I turned and walked out.
The door closed behind me.
I leaned against the wall, eyes shut.
Her screams still echoed in my ears.
My fists clenched.
Fuck.
A week passed without us seeing each other.
When she was discharged, I didn't go pick her up.
Elsa arranged the car. A black sedan took her back to the manor.
I stood at the study window, watching it pull through the gates. She sat in the back seat, expression unreadable. Just a small shadow hunched in the seat, then gone from view.
I turned around, back to the paperwork.
Then Elsa's voice from the doorway: "Sir, Miss Colonna's here."
Bianca.
The name turned over in my head, bringing up something that wasn't disgust—something else. Guilt. A ghost of regret.
I remembered eighteen-year-old Bianca turning back to smile at me in the garden. Her in white dresses, high heels clicking beside me. The year Father died, her hand in mine, silent, just there.
She should have been my wife.
If that night hadn't happened. If Olivia hadn't appeared—
I looked up. "Who called her?"
A pause. "Miss Colonna came on her own. She said... she has a way to fix the child situation."
