"I should have told you what I was doing for Lucia's family," Adrian said, once they'd settled onto the garden bench together, close enough now that the earlier distance felt almost impossible to remember. "Not because I did anything wrong, but because I promised you honesty, and quietly deciding what you needed to know without asking you isn't honesty. It's just a softer version of the same secrecy this family has always run on."
"I should have come to you directly instead of running to Sophia and assuming the worst," Elena admitted. "I spent so many years being handed decisions other people made for me that some part of me is still braced for this to be another one — for you to turn out to be exactly like everyone else who's ever claimed to have my best interests at heart while actually
