Morning light filtered into the east wing like a muted whisper—a pale wash of gold that softened the antique furnishings but did nothing to ease the heaviness pressing down on Seraphina's chest. She sat at her vanity, unmoving, staring at her reflection as though the mirror might blink first.
Her eyes were ringed with exhaustion.Her hands trembled when they reached for the hairbrush.Her pulse thrummed loudly enough to echo in her skull.
Nothing was working.
Not her smiles.Not her obedient compliance.Not her attempts to charm staff, appear stable, seem grateful.Not her desperate visits to the gym door just to catch a glimpse of him.Not her therapy sessions where Marwick scribbled clinical lines that never stayed on the page but seeped into her soul like cold ink.
She swallowed hard.
He was slipping away—no, not slipping, he was never within her reach to begin with. She had been clinging to smoke, grasping at the hollow shape of a man who no longer existed.
She exhaled shakily and pressed a palm to her sternum.
Her heart felt bruised.Her lungs felt shallow.Her mind felt like it was unraveling thread by thread.
The spiral—slow at first—began its descent.
She stood abruptly, chair scraping the floor.
Her escort, positioned by the door, straightened in alarm.
"Ma'am?"
"I'm going to the main wing."Her voice came out sharp, breathless, unsteady.
The escort hesitated. "Mrs. Harrington, Chairman's orders—"
She pushed past him, the sudden movement fueled by something closer to instinct than thought. The hallways stretched before her like arteries of a massive, living beast—one that did not welcome her, one that belonged only to him. Her steps quickened, heels clicking like frantic heartbeats.
She needed to see him.She needed him to look at her.She needed one glance, one word, one sliver of acknowledgment to prove she hadn't become invisible.
The escort followed, speaking into his comm-piece with calm urgency.
"Mrs. Harrington is leaving the secured zone."
She ignored him.
Her breaths were growing shallow.Her field of vision narrowing.
She reached the main wing.
Its double doors towered above her like a judgment.
She pushed through.
And froze.
Adrian stood at the far end of the hall—tall, sculpted, immaculate in a pressed charcoal suit. A cold, breathtaking presence, his posture so rigid it looked carved rather than living. He was with his chief of staff, discussing something quietly, gestures clipped and efficient.
He did not see her yet.
She stared as though witnessing an apparition.
This was not the boy who used to cling to her.This was not the heir who trailed her like a panting shadow.This was not the spoiled creature she once mocked and controlled.
She had come home expecting to laugh at his incompetence.
Instead, she found a man who carved companies like mountains and bent nations with a sentence.
He looked untouchable.
And she—she felt like dust carried by the draft of his footsteps.
Her breath hitched so sharply she choked.
The escort caught her arm gently."Mrs. Harrington—you must return—"
"No," she whispered, voice cracking. "No—just a moment—I need—"
But her whisper had already broken the air.
Adrian turned.
His gaze slid to her.
For a moment—half a heartbeat—his expression froze, blank and unreadable as polished obsidian. Not cold. Not cruel. Just… void. A man who had excised emotion from himself the way surgeons remove tumors.
She felt her knees weaken.
He dismissed his chief of staff with a nod.
Then came toward her—slow, controlled, unhurried.
Each step made her panic climb her throat like a living thing.
When he reached her, he did not ask why she was here.He simply looked at the escort.
"Her therapist was instructed to keep her in the east wing."
His tone was clinical.Flat.Void of accusation.But the escort flinched.
Seraphina spoke before the man could answer.
"I came because—"Her voice shook, an unstable note. "Because I needed to speak with you."
"You have therapy within the hour," he replied without looking at her, already turning away. "Return to your wing."
She grabbed his sleeve.
The contact shocked them both.
He stilled—not violently, but with the rigid composure of a man suppressing an instinctive recoil.
Her voice splintered.
"Please—just look at me—please—"
He did.
And the look destroyed her.
There was nothing there.
Not hate.Not pity.Not anger.Not affection.
Just a calm, frozen absence—like she was an equation, a problem, an administrative error he was obligated to correct.
"Seraphina," he said quietly, "let go."
Her hand fell from his sleeve as though burned.
She felt something rupture inside—an invisible string snapping so sharply she nearly lurched from the force of it.
Then the incident happened.
She didn't mean to cause it.
She didn't plan it.
It simply erupted from the breaking point in her chest.
She stepped back, dizzy.Her breath became ragged, fast, sharp.Her vision blurred around the edges.
Somewhere, faintly, she heard the escort call for medical staff.Somewhere, someone said her name.
But she was drowning in panic—real panic—not theatrics,not manipulation,not opportunism,but sheer animal terror.
Her legs gave way.
She hit the floor, palms slapping the polished marble, and she gasped for air that wouldn't enter.
The world tilted.The lights wavered.Her hearing distorted into a low, underwater hum.
She clawed at the ground.
"Seraphina," Adrian's voice came, taut but controlled. "Breathe."
She shook her head violently, sobbing.
"Nothing works—I tried—I tried everything—nothing—nothing—nothing—"
Her breaths came in choking gulps.
"Seraphina—"
"I can't reach you!" she screamed, voice breaking like glass. "I can't—no matter what I do—you don't move—you don't look—you don't feel—my god what happened to you—what did they do to you—what did I do to you—"
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
She continued spiraling.
"All my life I thought you were beneath me—beneath everyone—what a joke—you don't even see me now—I'm nothing—nothing—"
"Enough," he said quietly, but there was steel beneath the calm.
She shook her head, chest heaving."I'm losing my mind—I'm actually going insane—I thought I could fix this, I thought I could fix you—but you're not—you're not reachable—Adrian—Adrian—Adrian—"
Her voice crumbled, collapsing into sobs that scraped raw in the quiet hall.
"Why doesn't anything work? Why can't I make you look at me the way you used to? Why can't I undo this? Why can't I be enough—why can't I matter—why—why—why—"
Her body shook violently.
Her mind fluttered near blackout.
Adrian said nothing at first.
Then he crouched—slow, composed, deliberate—and placed a hand on the floor beside her knees, not touching her, but grounding the space between them.
His voice was low.
Controlled.
Cruelly honest.
"Because I am not someone who can be reached. Not anymore. And not by you."
Her sobs stopped abruptly—cut clean, like a severed thread.
She stared at him, hollow-eyed.
An emptiness spread through her chest slowly, heavily, like ink bleeding into cloth.
And in that moment—in that cold revelation—something inside her gave up.
Not dramatically.Not loudly.Not with screams or panic.
Just a quiet, defeated collapse.
She looked away.
Her voice came out thin and scraped raw.
"…Then what am I supposed to do?"
He answered with the truth she didn't want.
"The same thing I do."A pause."Survive."
She felt nothing after that.
Just a numb, weightless quiet.
She let the staff lift her.She let them guide her back to the east wing.She let the door close behind her.
Because there was nothing left to fight.
Nothing left to cling to.
Nothing left that she could change.
For the first time—
Seraphina Moretti understood that her desperation, her madness, her spirals—none of it mattered.
He was a dead star.
And she was simply orbiting a corpse.