Chapter 30: The Grip of the Past
More silence.
It stretched long enough for tension to seep into the air again, for a few of the closer guests to pretend they weren’t listening while tilting slightly in their silks and formal collars.
Then Misty exhaled, lips curving into something brittle.
"You are a really ungrateful child," she said, not loud—but loud enough. The kind of sentence meant to wound and be heard. "You wouldn’t have survived your first decade without me. And now, dressed in borrowed silk, you dare stand here like any of this was your doing?"
Lucas didn’t move.
She leaned in, just enough for her words to reach him and no one else—at least in theory.
"Either you want to admit it or not, you’re still under engagement with Count Christian Velloran," she continued, her voice sweet and low, curling with malice like perfume gone stale. "That contract isn’t dead. Not in every jurisdiction. And when the truth leaks—because it will—you’ll be a scandal, not a prince."
She let the threat bloom for a moment.
Then: "Do you think being the Grand Duke’s prospective fiancée is any different than this?"
Lucas looked at her.
Slowly. Without blinking. The kind of look that wasn’t a reaction, but a reckoning.
Then, in a voice carved from ice and quiet fire: