It was Damian, of all people, who nearly unraveled everything — not through malice, but through the same careless hesitation that had already cost him so much with Claire.
Overheard by a household staff member and relayed, garbled, back to Elena, was a conversation in which Damian mentioned Adrian "still keeping tabs on Lucia," a comment Damian had meant entirely differently than it landed — an offhand reference to Adrian quietly ensuring, through a mutual contact, that Lucia's family hadn't suffered further retaliation from Marcus after the gala encounter. But stripped of context, filtered through secondhand gossip, it reached Elena sounding like something else entirely: that Adrian had reached out to his old love since the gala, privately, behind Elena's back.
The fight that followed w
