Chapter 49: Ash Between Their Steps
"You’re trembling, Savannah. Why are you trembling?" Rhett’s voice was quiet but urgent, his fingers wrapped around hers like steel bands, both shielding and restraining.
She blinked up at him. "Because everything around me is changing, and I don’t know who to be anymore."
His jaw tightened. The gala crowd still buzzed behind them, but in this small hallway tucked between chandeliers and closed doors, they stood in their own tense bubble.
"Don’t say that like you have to stop being who you are. You’re allowed to change. You’re allowed to grow."
She pulled her hand free slowly, deliberately. "And if growth means becoming someone who can no longer be molded to your expectations?"
Rhett didn’t answer right away. His eyes searched hers as if trying to decode a language he had forgotten.
"Then I adapt too," he finally said. "Because I never wanted you molded, Savannah. I wanted you strong."
She laughed bitterly. "Funny. It took being auctioned off like livestock for me to find that strength."
"Don’t," he growled, stepping closer, the raw emotion in his face unfiltered now. "Don’t reduce what you’ve become to that night. You were always powerful. That night just forced the world to see it."
She looked away, chest heaving. The guilt curled like smoke in her gut, not just from her own actions but from how much of herself she had lost trying to make him see.
"Savannah," he said softly. "Why did you run from me in the ballroom?"