Nobody spoke for the first twenty minutes. Darian kept both hands on the wheel, his eyes fixed on the road. Every few minutes, his gaze flicked toward the rearview mirror before returning to the road.
Lyra broke the silence first, because someone had to. "Since before you rejected me. That's what you said."
"Yes."
"How long before?"
Darian's jaw tightened. "A week. Maybe less."
A week.
Lyra remembered the garden. The way he'd smiled when she'd asked whether he was nervous about the ceremony. The way he'd touched her cheek and promised that nothing would change between them. Until the moment he rejected her, she'd believed whatever was happening between them was still theirs.
He had already known.
"What did you know?"
"My father came to me. He said there were people asking question
