The Harrington Mansion was a citadel of silence, a palace turned mausoleum since the deaths of Atlas and Lysandra Harrington—and, truthfully, long before Seraphina Moretti ever stepped foot inside it again. She had always known it as a place of decadent overabundance, endless staff, and the slovenly trail of indulgence left behind by the pampered heir who used to call it home. Back then, the household had revolved around one clock: Adrian Vale Harrington's whims.
Now the mansion did not revolve around anything at all. It merely stood, a house carved out of wealth and grief, kept spotless and cold, as if air itself was reluctant to linger in its corridors.
Seraphina, for all her haughty defiance, felt that cold seep into her bones the moment she crossed the threshold. She wasn't supposed to be here—he had been emphatic about boundaries, about her not being permitted beyond certain parts of the estate—but whatever shame or hesitation normal people possessed, Seraphina had been raised without. Obstinacy was practically sewn into her bloodstream.
And so she moved quickly, silently, like a trespasser in a home she once considered her future—one she had fantasized about ruling through his affections, through his obsessive childish infatuation with her. The very boy whose orbit she once found suffocating was now so distant she felt she could barely recognize him.
He's changed. Everyone keeps saying it. They whisper about it. They look at him with fear now… actual fear.
That thought pricked something sharp in her chest. Annoyance? Jealousy? Something uglier?
She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
What she did want to know—desperately, irrationally—was who he had become when he thought no one was watching. The man who returned from his kidnapping and inherited the reins of an empire was not the blob of entitlement she'd left behind. When she barged into his mansion earlier that week and encountered those servants who dared to deny her entry, she expected that the real Adrian would appear, red-faced and whining, whining for his "Sera" like he always used to.
Instead, a ghost in a man's body approached, expression carved from marble, suit tailored so sharply it could cut, eyes like winter. A body—absurdly lean, sculpted, unreal—had replaced the sacks of mass he used to carry around. His voice was lower, steadier, edged in command. The kinds of tones that boardrooms obeyed, that governments likely flinched at.
He barely looked at her when he told her the engagement would be annulled.
She had not slept for days.
Her family's response—cling to him, do not let this marriage slip—still echoed in her skull. Their cold analysis terrified her more than his new demeanor: He rose the Harrington Group to number one. He controls everything now. He is the most powerful man alive. Losing him is not an option.
So here she was, clawing for answers in the only way she knew: breaking rules.
She slipped into his private suite like a shadow and immediately stopped short.
"What… is this?" she whispered.
Seraphina remembered his room as an extension of his gluttonous lifestyle—plates of half-eaten food on every surface, clothes stained with spilled liquor or sugary drinks, gaming equipment, gaudy LED lights, messy sheets, cologne bottles that smelled far too sweet, and a closet brimming with comically large designer garments stretched past their limits.
What lay before her now was monastic.
The room was immaculate. Quiet in a way that felt surgical rather than peaceful. The walls were bare but for a few small frames—she squinted and realized they were old photographs of him with his parents, moments from childhood, untouched by dust yet touched by sorrow.
His bed was made with military precision. Sheets tucked so tight the corners looked carved. No excess pillows, no throw blankets, no mess—just harsh, functional neatness.
The air smelled of cedar and cold air—no cloying sweetness, no alcohol fumes, no cologne trying too hard.
Seraphina's chest tightened. Who are you?
She drifted deeper, unable to stop herself, each step drawn forward by a mixture of dread and fascination.
And then she noticed the door to the walk-in closet half open.
The closet—once a comedic nightmare of overflowing fabric—was now a gallery of order. Perfectly aligned hangers. A minimalist color palette. Monochromatic suits that looked custom-made by tailors who charged more for one jacket than some families earned in a year.
Seraphina reached out and touched one of the shirts.
Her brows furrowed.
"…this is tiny," she murmured aloud before she realized it.
She pulled a shirt fully off the hanger. It wasn't tiny in normal terms—it was fitted, tailored, clearly meant for a man with a lean, athletic build. But compared to what he once wore? Compared to the shirts that had required special custom tailors because luxury houses didn't make sizes big enough?
It was drastically smaller.
She sifted through more. Suit jackets with narrow waists. Shirts that emphasized a sculpted torso. Workout gear for a body that had clearly become disciplined, controlled, honed.
Her throat tightened as she whispered to the empty closet, "He really lost all that weight…"
But it wasn't just weight loss. It wasn't a diet.
It was metamorphosis. Complete obliteration of the boy she remembered.
Seraphina stepped back, heart thudding unevenly. Her fingertips grazed a folded stack of clothing tucked near the back—oversized, familiar, stained with old food marks, stretched beyond reason.
His old shirts.
They were shoved away into the corner as though he couldn't bring himself to throw them out but couldn't bear to see them either.
She picked up one, and her breath hitched. It was huge—an absurd blanket of a shirt, smelling faintly of something nostalgic, something pathetic, something… him.
The old him.
The boy who chased her through galas. Who bragged about her to anyone who would listen. Who begged for kisses and clung to her hand like she was the moon.
She had hated it. Hated him.
And now, staring into the absence he'd carved out of himself, she felt something strange ripple through her—an ache of something that resembled guilt, fear, and an inexplicable loss.
"Why…" she whispered. "Why didn't you… why didn't you stay the same?"
Because if he had stayed the same, she wouldn't be standing here trying to understand him. She wouldn't be panicking about marriage annulments or her parents' orders or the fact that the most powerful man in the world wanted nothing to do with her.
She wouldn't feel this horrible twisting sensation that maybe—just maybe—she had lost something she didn't even know she wanted until it slipped out of her hands.
The closet seemed to thrum with the ghost of who he was and the hard, silent presence of who he had become.
Seraphina hugged his old shirt to her chest without even realizing it, her mind spiraling.
Why weren't you there for him?Why did you say those things before he was kidnapped?Why didn't you return when you heard his parents died?Why… why does he not look at you anymore?
The silence of his room answered nothing.
And yet it felt like it judged her.