The waltz music continued on, a river of sound carrying Kaelen and Bella across the marble. They were a portrait in motion, his darkness a stark anchor for her ethereal grace. I held my ground, a statue in a storm of whispers, until Anna Vancourt materialized at my side like a well-dressed ghost.
"It does an old heart good to see some traditions endure," she sighed, her voice a silken net of false nostalgia. She didn't look at me, her gaze fixed on the dancers. "After the… incident at the lake, he was a ghost himself. Wouldn't speak, wouldn't eat. It was Bella who brought him back. She'd play that little piano in their sunroom, and he would just… listen. It was her family that saved him, you know. In every way that matters."
Her words were not barbs; they were surgical sutures, stitching Bella into the very fabric of his survival, a history I could never touch.
"We always knew he'd need a woman who understood his scars," she continued, her tone gently maternal. "Not just the man he built for the world, but the boy who had to be rebuilt. Some foundations, my dear, are laid too early and too deep to ever be replaced."
I kept my eyes on Kaelen, on the rigid line of his shoulders, using his image as a shield. But inside, each of Anna's words was a shard of ice, chilling me to the core. She was systematically erasing me from his story, reducing our alliance to a temporary interlude.
As the music began its final, sweeping descent. Anna gave my arm a gentle, patronizing squeeze. "You're a brave girl, Elara. Truly."
And then I saw it.
As the last note hung in the air, Bella, still held in the frame of his arms, rose on her toes. It was a deliberate, graceful motion. She leaned in, her honey-gold curls brushing his cheek, and pressed her lips to his.
It was a soft, closed-mouth kiss. Brief. Chaste, by any objective measure. But it was public, perfectly timed, and it felt like a door slamming shut in my face.
Kaelen froze.
His entire body went rigid. He didn't pull away. He didn't lean in. He just… stopped. For three agonizing heartbeats, he was a statue in her arms.
And in that stillness, something inside me broke.
It wasn't a shatter, but a swift, silent collapse—like a glass pane giving way, all at once, without a sound. A cold void opened in my chest, so sudden and absolute it stole my breath. The noise of the ballroom—the murmurs, the clinking glasses, the rustling silk—muffled into a distant hum, as if I were sinking underwater.
He's letting her.
The thought was clear and sharp, a shard of ice in the numbness. It didn't matter why. It didn't matter if it was obligation or trauma or simple shock. In that public space, under the gaze of everyone who mattered, he was allowing it. He was allowing her to claim him, to rewrite our story as a fleeting distraction.
My own composure fractured. A sharp, silent gasp caught in my throat. The champagne flute in my hand trembled, the liquid shimmering like my suddenly unsteady world.
It was enough.
Anna's eyes glittered with vindication. Bella, pulling back from the kiss, glanced over Kaelen's shoulder and saw the fleeting pain on my face before I could bury it. And Kaelen, finally breaking from his stupor and taking a half-step back, his gaze frantic and seeking, found mine.
He saw the wreckage. He saw the hollow, cold understanding in my eyes.
I didn't wait. I turned and walked away, my steps measured but my path a blind escape.
The air at the terrace was cold enough to bite.I stepped into it anyway, letting the ballroom's music fade into a distant, muffled waltz. The scent of lilies followed me — someone's perfume, or maybe memory's cruelty — and it made my stomach twist.
The terrace stretched wide and pale under the moonlight, marble slick from earlier rain. Beyond the balustrade, the gardens fell away into shadow, the fountain a pale ghost in the dark. I walked until the laughter behind me was only a hum. My hands were shaking, though I told myself it was only from the cold.
It wasn't.
I'd seen enough. Bella's soft, calculated kiss. Kaelen's stillness. The exact same stillness Liam had worn the night he let me fall.
I gripped the stone railing until my knuckles ached. The sound of the ballroom — applause, violins — drifted out through the open doors, so cruelly elegant it might have been a requiem.
I had believed Kaelen was different. Smarter. Harder. I had believed he saw me — not as a pawn, not as a child. I had thought…
Fool.
The word landed in my chest like a fist.
He had looked for me in that room. I saw it — the flicker of guilt, the start of movement before it froze. But that was the point. He froze. Again. Like all of them do, when the moment to choose comes.
When loyalty costs them something.
I pressed my eyes shut. The world spun behind them — marble floors, a kiss under chandeliers, a woman who once died because she trusted too easily. The ache in my throat was unbearable. I wanted to scream, but the sound refused to leave me.
The click of approaching footsteps broke the silence.
"Elara—"
I stiffened before I turned. He stood at the threshold of the terrace, framed by golden light. The perfection of his tuxedo looked obscene in the moonlight — too composed, too deliberate for the chaos he had left behind.
"Don't." My voice cracked on the word.
He stopped. The light caught on his eyes — dark, storm-thick. "Please," he said, the single word rougher than I'd ever heard from him. "I need to explain."
"Explain?" I laughed, a brittle sound that hurt to hear. "You mean justify? There's a difference."
He took a slow step closer, as if approaching a wounded animal. "It wasn't what it looked like."
"Then enlighten me," I said sharply. "Because from where I was standing, it looked exactly like what it was. A perfect little tableau for the Vancourts — their golden boy and his savior, reunited under the lights. Did she whisper the right words this time? Did you remember to thank her for saving your life before she kissed you?"
He flinched, jaw tightening. "You don't understand."
"Then make me," I snapped. The words ripped out of me, too loud in the open air. "Because I stood there — again — watching the man I trusted stand still while another woman claimed him."
Something in his expression cracked. "Don't compare me to him," he said, low and dangerous. "Don't you dare."
"Why not?" I threw back, my breath fogging between us. "Because you wear better suits? Because your betrayal comes with paperwork and press statements instead of bedsheets?"
He closed the distance between us then, stopping just short of touching. "You think I wanted that?" His voice broke on the last word. "You think I didn't see what it did to you? I froze, Elara. Because she—" He bit the word off, forced it out again, quieter. "Because she represents the part of my life that nearly destroyed me. The moment she leaned in, I wasn't here. I was back there. Trapped in the same goddamn memory I've spent years trying to bury."
The anger in his voice wasn't directed at me, but it burned just the same.
"So that's your defense?" I said. "Trauma?"
He exhaled shakily. "No. My defense is that I didn't kiss her back. I didn't move because I couldn't — because I hate that part of myself, and because if I pushed her away in front of them, I would've made you the next target of their humiliation. They would've turned this entire room against you. I thought I could shield you by taking the hit."
For a moment, I just stared at him. His explanation was too clean, too selfless — and yet, the pain in his voice was real.
"You think that makes it better?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "That you let her touch you to protect me?"
He looked at me then — really looked — and I saw it: the raw, miserable regret beneath the steel. "No," he said. "I think it makes me a coward."
The honesty in it nearly undid me.
I turned away, staring out into the gardens. The fountain's trickle was maddeningly calm. "I spent years learning how not to break," I said softly. "When Liam betrayed me, I told myself I'd never be that girl again — the one who stands still while her world collapses." My throat ached. "And then tonight, I felt it all over again."
A gust of cold air swept through, lifting the hem of my gown. Behind me, Kaelen's silence was heavy — not empty, but filled with words he didn't know how to say.
"Elara." His voice was hoarse now. "I can't undo it. But I swear to you — I didn't want her. I don't want her. I only want—"
He stopped. The unfinished sentence trembled between us, dangerous and alive.
I turned, meeting his eyes. "Don't," I said quietly. "Don't say something you'll regret when the lights come back on."
He stepped forward anyway. "I regret enough already."
The desperation in his tone cut through my anger like glass. For a heartbeat, I thought he might reach for me — and God help me, I might have let him. But he didn't. His hands curled into fists at his sides, as though he knew that touching me now would make the wound permanent.
We stood there in silence, the distance between us humming with everything unsaid.
Finally, I drew a slow, steady breath and looked him in the eye. "You made your choice tonight, Kaelen. Maybe it wasn't deliberate, maybe it wasn't cruel — but you let her define the moment. You let them see you stand still. And now, that's the story they'll tell."
He closed his eyes, pain flickering across his face. "I'll fix it."
"No," I said, and my voice was steady again. "You won't. Because you can't fix what's already public. You can only decide what comes next."
For a long moment, he didn't move. Then, softly, "And you?"
"I'll do what I've always done." I forced a faint smile, brittle as glass. "Survive."
I turned before he could answer. My heels clicked against the marble, each step a quiet declaration that I was done bleeding for anyone.
As I reached the door, his voice followed me — low, broken, almost a prayer. "I never wanted to hurt you."
I paused, just for a second, my hand on the frame. "You didn't," I said without looking back. "You reminded me why I don't let anyone close enough to try."
Then I walked back into the golden noise of the ballroom.
Behind me, the terrace swallowed him whole.