The house changed after the burial.
Not in obvious ways. The walls didn’t shift. The furniture stayed where it was. The staff still moved quietly, efficiently, like ghosts trained to never disturb the air.
But something essential was gone.
Not Chase.
Sound.
Silence settled into the Sinclair mansion like a second skin. The kind that didn’t come from peace but from things left unsaid on purpose.
Lucien stopped touching me.
It happened so suddenly that at first, I thought it was temporary. A pause. Grief, maybe. Shock. The kind of emotional shutdown people talk about when something painful happens.
But days passed.
Then a week.
And nothing.
No hand on my waist when we passed in the hallway.
No fingers curling around my wrist when he wanted my attention.
No presence behind me at n
