Roman did not sleep.
The night stretched endlessly inside his pavilion, the walls too silent, the city lights too bright, every reflection reminding him of the words Liana had thrown at him like blades. No matter how many times he closed his eyes, he saw her standing there—unmoved, unafraid, unbroken—telling him, with devastating certainty, that she would never choose him again.
You turned poverty into a crime.
The sentence echoed louder than any insult he had ever endured.
Roman rose before dawn, pacing barefoot across the cold marble floor. His mind churned, calculating, undoing, reconstructing. For the first time in years, he felt the unfamiliar burn of panic. Not because he had lost control of the company—no, that he could fix—but because he was losing control of *her*.
And that w
