vows of vengeance

chapter 5

Flashback – Six Years Ago

Paris, rainy evening, a rooftop café on Rue Lamarck.

Juliette's cheeks flushed with cold and champagne. She leaned in, brushing croissant crumbs from Adrian's lips, laughing at his self-satisfied smirk.

"Tell me," she taunted, "are you ever tired of being loved?"

He didn't smile this time.

He just looked at her. Too long. Too intensely.

"You're the only woman I'll ever love," he rasped, words full of truth.

Juliette blinked. Then laughed again, more nervously this time. She wasn't accustomed to shouldering this kind of honesty.

Neither was he.

Present Day – Blackmore Foundation Children's Charity Gala.

The ballroom sparkled in gold and silver. Champagne glasses clinked. Laughter ascended in polite, rehearsed tones.

Juliette stood in the background, invisible. In midnight velvet, her eyes roamed the children's paintings hung on canvas boards. She traced along one crooked crayon rainbow, created by a girl with frail limbs and courageous eyes.

The sound of a faint cough made her stop.

A little girl—five, maybe six—stood alone, holding a lost teddy bear. She had oxygen tubes leading from her nose and wide, anxious eyes.

Juliette slowly knelt and picked up the bear.

"There," she breathed, "he was just sleeping."

The girl nodded, then extended her pinkie. "Promise?"

Juliette blinked, surprised for a moment.

She entwined her pinkie with the girl's "Promise."

Adrian stood in the other room, watching.

He'd come fashionably late, as always. Clad in bespoke vengeance. But as he saw Juliette kneel down next to the sick girl, something inside him awakened—something that wasn't anger.

The silence lingered.

Until the one beside him shattered it.

"She's good at pretending," Victoria said, swirling wine. "That's what she's always been good at."

Adrian remained silent.

Because what he witnessed on Juliette's face was not acting. That was not a performance. That was something he had not observed in four years:

Her heart.

Later That Night – The Penthouse.

They did not speak on the way home.

The silence was thicker than hate.

Juliette slipped into a robe and stepped across onto the balcony. The city lights below resembled stars from heaven that had fallen and gotten stuck in traffic.

She wasn't aware Adrian had entered.

But she felt him.

He was standing behind her, not near—just near enough for the wind to carry his breath onto her shoulder.

"You were so happy today," he said.

She remained silent.

"Why?" he asked. "What did you like?"

Juliette's fists gripped tighter on the railing. "I made a promise."

He stepped in closer. "To a child?"

She nodded once.

There was an entire silence.

Then, without warning, he asked, "Why didn't you fight more to clear your name?"

Her breath stopped.

She turned slowly. "What?"

"You had the resources". The evidence could've been revealed. "You're not stupid". "Why did you let them bury you?"

She glared at him—at this man who had dragged her through shame, cold bargains, and wordless war—and now wanted to ask him why she had not screamed harder when they drowned her.

"I struggled," she spat. "I struggled alone". "While you watched."

His jaw clenched. "I didn't know everything."

"No," she panted. "You didn't care."

The silence cut sharply.

Juliette edged closer to circumvent him. He couldn't resist and outstretched, instinctively, and caught her wrist.

Their gazes met.

She didn't pull away.

He didn't let her go.

His hand lingered up—tentatively—to her cheek. She flinched, but he persisted.

It was not a kiss. It was not forgiveness. It was not tender.

It was a reminder of what once was.

And for one frozen moment, it was something else.

She stepped back, shaking. “Don’t touch me if you’re going to forget again tomorrow.”

He didn’t answer.

And before she left, she asked “Why did you leave me that night three years ago?”

Adrian freezed.