Maddy stormed into Ethan’s office before sunset, the anger practically steaming from her skin.
“She humiliated me!” she spat. “Are you going to let her embarrass me like that again?”
Ethan looked up from a ledger, eyes calm, voice neutral. “She didn’t embarrass you, Maddy. You walked into it.”
She startled, the plainness,the meanness of the words struck her.
She said, so deliberately, "You still love her."
He did not refute it. Didn’t say a word.
And that said everything.
Her chest rose with ragged breath. “I stood by you when everyone else left. When the council doubted you. When your people questioned your decisions—I was there.”
He looked at her. Not coldly. Not cruelly. But truthfully.
“You stood in my shadow, Maddy. Not beside me.”
Her hand slapped the desk. The wall could b
