Martha looked around the room—at the glass, the stone, the warmth that Julian had brought back to their lives. "That man worked until his hands bled to give me my breath back. He walked away from a kingdom for you. If his foundation is cracked, you don't burn the house down. You help him reinforce the beam."
Siena felt a cold shiver of realization. She had been so focused on her own pain, on the violation of her pride, that she had forgotten the man beneath the architect. Julian was a man who had been raised in a world where everything was a transaction. He was still learning that love was a partnership of the broken, not a perfection of the elite.
The sun was setting by the time Julian’s car pulled back into the courtyard. The snow had stopped, leaving the valley in a pristine, agoniz
