A RING WITHOUT EMOTION
The ring sat between them like a quiet accusation, an unspoken question neither of them wanted to answer. A small velvet box rested on the glass table in Adrian’s private suite, its lid left deliberately ajar as if it were mid-breath, mid-sentence. Inside, a thin circle of gold gleamed under the room’s soft lighting, catching reflections of the chandelier and throwing them back with a deceptive warmth. It was a beautiful thing—delicate, flawless, gleaming as if it had been designed to charm anyone who looked at it.
But Emilia couldn’t take her eyes from it for a very different reason.
It shouldn’t have been possible for an object so small, so deceptively innocent, to make her feel as though the room was shrinking around her. Her ribcage tightened to the point of a
