Elara's POV
I didn't stop running until I reached the back gardens of the villa. The night air was sharp, laced with the scent of roses that felt almost mocking in their perfection. I pressed against the cold stone wall, my breath ragged, the sting of hot coffee still burning against my chest.
Tears came before I could stop them. Silent, furious tears that blurred the glittering lights of the villa windows. I hated myself for crying. Hated myself for letting her see me crumble.
Isabella. Even her name sounded like silk and cruelty. She had everything — beauty, wealth, and him. Lucian Veyra. The man who had hired me, the man whose world I had accidentally stumbled into.
And I was nothing. Just a maid who didn't belong.
"Pathetic," I whispered to myself, hugging my arms tight. "You should've never come here."
A sound behind me made me freeze. Footsteps — steady, unhurried, deliberate.
I turned, and there he was.
Lucian.
Even in the shadows, his presence dominated everything — the sharp cut of his suit, the storm in his dark eyes, the quiet authority that made the air itself bend around him.
"Elara," he said, my name low on his tongue, like a secret he wasn't supposed to speak.
I quickly wiped at my face, looking away. "I'm sorry, sir. I—I'll clean the mess. It won't happen again."
His silence was heavy. Too heavy. Then he stepped closer, and my heart stuttered.
"It wasn't your fault." His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it. "Don't apologize for what others choose to do."
I blinked at him, stunned. He wasn't defending Isabella. He was… defending me?
"But she's your—" The word fiancée tangled in my throat.
He cut me off with a look. "That's not what matters right now."
For a moment, his mask slipped. I saw something in him — not the untouchable billionaire everyone whispered about, but a man watching a fragile thread snap inside him.
His hand lifted, as though he might brush away the tears staining my cheeks, but he stopped himself, his fist curling instead. The restraint was almost painful to witness.
"Elara," he said again, softer this time, "don't let her break you."
And then he turned, leaving me with the echo of his words and the strange, dangerous warmth that lingered in my chest.
Lucian's POV
I walked away before I did something reckless. Before I gave in to the urge to touch her, to promise her things I had no right to promise.
She was a maid. I was bound by blood, by power, by an engagement that could not be undone without consequences.
But the sight of her crying in the dark carved a crack into me — one that no wealth, no control, could seal.
For the first time in years, I wasn't sure who I was more furious with. Isabella… or myself.