Cassia wasn’t expecting anything that morning. Not the soft knock on the door. Not the early light cutting through the trees just right. Not the delivery man holding a cardboard box with her full name spelled in cursive, she hadn’t seen in years.
Cassia Rose Vellani.
Not Lane. Not Katherine’s sister. Not an heir or a scandal. Just… her.
The handwriting made her stop breathing.
It was her mother’s. Slanted. Tall letters. Ink that curled at the ends like a song left unfinished.
She didn’t take the box inside at first.
She just stood there, barefoot on Dorian’s porch, wearing one of his cotton shirts and her own silence. The world felt too still. The box too light for how heavy it suddenly made her feel.
Dorian wasn’t home — off somewhere handling last-minute vineyard business. The hou
