Prologue
Love was dead.
Sofia Blake Castelleragh couldn"t see or hear, just feel. The dark that shrouded her vision was blissful. She was glad she couldn"t see her broken body lying on the pristine marble floors of Castelleragh mansion, staining its unblemished surface. A thousand knives of pain worked under her skin, slashing and hacking of what remained her heart. The veins were torn, the arteries cut and what lingered was a mangled blackened muscle, laboriously pumping blood so that she could survive.
This is what she had been given in return for loving her husband—a body broken beyond recognition, a heart shattered beyond repair.
This was what love was supposed to be?
This pain, agony, and misery?
This was what authors and poets wrote about?
This slow death that robbed you of your dignity?
Was this love?
If this was love, then she wanted no part of it…