Night in the Harrington estate was a peculiar phenomenon. The rest of the world slept with a natural kind of quiet, the soft hush of wind passing through trees, the murmur of distant city life settling into rest. But the Harrington estate did not sleep so much as hold its breath. Its silence carried density, the kind that pressed against the ribs, the kind that made footsteps echo like accusations.
The east wing was worse.
Seraphina sat on the chaise near the tall windows, the lights dimmed, the moonlight spilling across the marble floor in silver pools. She had changed out of her socialite dress hours ago, slipping into a soft satin slip that clung to her bones more than her skin. The guards had withdrawn to their stationed corners in the hall. The therapists on rotation had retreated. And the staff—polite, loyal, always watching—moved through the wing like ghosts.
She had never realized until tonight how suffocating quiet could be.
Her hands rested in her lap, trembling faintly. She tried to steady them. The ballroom still clung to her senses—perfume lingering in the air, the murmur of conversation, the flash of cameras. But the thing that stayed most vividly in her mind was the photograph of him.
Adrian stepping out of the skyscraper.
Hair pushed back by the wind.
Jaw tense.
Eyes shadowed in a way no makeup artist could replicate.
A man carved from agony and discipline.
A man who lived as though the world owed him pain.
For a long while, she simply stared at the moonlit floor. Then her thoughts began stitching themselves into patterns she had avoided for months—patterns she had been too desperate, too selfish, too terrified to face.
And it hit her slowly, like cold water rising around her.
She had never truly known him. Not the real him. Not the man who had emerged from tragedy. Not the man who had buried his parents, inherited an empire, survived a kidnapping with wounds that didn't bleed externally, only internally.
She had known the spoiled boy. The one who chased her like an eager puppy, who bought her chocolates and perfumes, who texted her constantly, whose world had revolved around her because he had no other real responsibilities.
And she had treated that version of him as though he were permanent.
She took a breath that punched through her lungs.
She had been cruel.
She had been foolish.
She had not written to him when his parents died. She had not reached out when he was undergoing psychological rehabilitation. She had not even tried to understand what losing the only two people who shaped his universe must have done to him.
Instead, she had been relieved, for one vicious, shameful second, that the announcement had said only the parents were found.
She hadn't wanted him to die—but she hadn't wanted to deal with the consequences of his survival either.
She had made jokes to her friends.
She had pretended not to care.
She had believed the old Adrian would eventually come crawling back to her like he always did.
And now—
The new Adrian had no space for anyone, especially not her.
He had become the type of man who barely slept, who worked until he collapsed, who punished his body as though enduring pain was a form of atonement. A man who woke before dawn, wordless and cold, disappearing to board meetings or international calls, and returned past midnight without acknowledging she existed.
She had become an afterthought in a contract he hadn't even wanted.
Drawn into his orbit not through love this time but through duty, guilt, and exhaustion.
A shiver ran up her spine.
She pressed her forehead into her knees, hugging her legs tightly. The faint scent of marble cleaner and lavender hung in the air. Somewhere deeper in the hall, footsteps echoed—staff changing shifts, security doing rounds, the quiet machine of a household managing a fragile mistress.
She imagined him in the west wing now.
Sitting at his massive oak desk with the soft glow of his laptop illuminating the hollowed lines of his face. His tea gone cold beside him. His hair sticking up from stress and exhaustion. The cuff of his shirt undone. The muscles of his back tensed from hours of unbroken stillness.
She imagined him alone in that near-freezing room he slept in—if it could be called sleep.
She imagined him fighting ghosts.
And for the first time, she understood.
She truly, painfully understood.
He wasn't cold because he hated her.He wasn't quiet because he wanted to hurt her.He wasn't distant because he enjoyed watching her despair.
He was simply broken.
And she had never noticed. Not once.
She lifted her head slowly, staring blankly into the dim expanse of the east wing. The servants had placed warm lamps on low tables, soft glows that should have felt comforting. Instead, they felt like spotlights shining on her own disgrace.
A staff member walked by quietly, placing a tray on the table—tea, some biscuits, a small bowl of fruit. Her guards exchanged a silent nod.
She was being tended to like a patient, not a wife.
No, not even a patient.
A risk.
A responsibility.
A liability.
She didn't cry. Strangely, she didn't even feel grief. Just a hollow ache that vibrated under her skin, like a bruise touched too late.
She tried to imagine what the past year must have been like for him.
The kidnapping.
The rescue.
The funerals.
The sudden coronation into power.
The empire forced onto his shoulders.
The loneliness.Crushing, choking, suffocating loneliness.
And she had been nowhere.
The staff in the east wing were loyal to him, not her. They treated her gently, but their gentleness carried something else—a quiet pity. She felt it now more sharply than ever.
She wasn't the victim here.
She was part of the collateral damage of a man who had endured too much.
Her thoughts drifted back to the contract.
Divorce whenever he wanted.
No say in his assets.
Restricted spending.
Constant supervision.
Isolation.
She had thought it was tyrannical.
But now—
Now she saw it clearly.
He didn't cage her out of cruelty.He caged her because he didn't have the capacity to handle another death.
He was terrified.
Terrified of what another tragedy would do to him.
Terrified of what losing someone—even someone he didn't love anymore—would shatter inside him.
He was keeping her alive.Not happy.Not fulfilled.Not cherished.
Just alive.
She exhaled shakily, realizing she was shaking. Her hands, her breath, even her heartbeat felt wrong—too light, too fast, too controlled.
The estate was silent, deep and heavy.
She understood now why he had built a life of walls, rules, schedules, discipline.
She understood why he never smiled.
Why he never stayed in the same room with her for too long.
Why he never looked her directly in the eyes unless he had to.
Love didn't live inside him anymore.
There was no softness for her to coax out of him.
No warmth she could reignite.
No space left for the version of her who used to bathe in attention.
She pressed her palm to her chest. It hurt.
Tonight, for the first time since she married him, she realized that this house—this gilded, magnificent estate—was not the cage she feared.
She was living inside the aftermath of someone else's tragedy,and she was just now realizing she had been a stranger to his suffering all along.
The east wing lights flickered softly as midnight approached.
And Seraphina, alone in her corner of this fractured empire, finally felt the weight of the man she had married—not the myth, not the heir, not the ghost of her former lover.
But the wounded creature who could barely hold himself together.
And she whispered to the empty room:
"I didn't know…"
The walls didn't answer.
But she knew the truth now.
And it would haunt her as deeply as his ghosts haunted him.