"Please, both of you, could return to the manor. So as not to keep Miss Thorne waiting for too long and causing her distress."
In an instant, Kael Thorne and Elian Voss froze where they stood.
Their lips parted, as if they still had words to say—until Lord Lucian's warm, deep voice called out, "Jade."
I turned at once, hurrying toward the hand he held out to me.
When his palm closed firmly around mine, his warmth seeped into my icy fingertips, chasing away the chill.
And with it, the last faint thread of longing for the past in my heart snapped clean.
I did not glance back at the two men behind me. As I stepped onto the carriage through the snow, I let the curtain fall, sealing those two rigid figures in the snow outside for good.
The carriage's wheels crunched over the snow, soon
