The nights were no longer a refuge for Anna. For weeks now, they had become scenes of sleeplessness, of thoughts that struck harder than any word from Viktoria, harder than any poisoned caress from Lucian.
She no longer knew if she loved him.
Or if she just needed him so she wouldn't break again.
Everything in the mansion seemed to remain the same: the silk curtains billowing to the rhythm of the wind, the corridors decorated with silent art, the faint scent of incense. But Ana... Ana was no longer the same. The transformation had begun when she stopped waiting. When she stopped justifying.
She was in her room, in front of the mirror she hated so much, slowly combing her hair with an antique brush. Her eyes, reflected, were no longer those of a girl in love. There was something deeper, darker. Something she herself could not define.
Lucian had entered her life like a lighthouse in the middle of a shipwreck. He had saved her from the cold, from abandonment, from utter contempt. He had offered her warmth, tenderness and promises that, for a while, felt real.
But he had also tied her down.
He took her voice away with kisses, locked her in with hugs, made her doubt what she felt and what she deserved. His love was a prison wrapped in velvet.
That afternoon, as she walked through the east wing of the mansion, she overheard two maids talking. They were oblivious to her presence.
-He says he loves her, but he watches her day and night.
-And did you see how he had Katia fired just because he talked to her?
Ana stopped. Katia. The only one who had been kind to her. Fired. For talking to her.
She felt something tear inside her. An invisible rope, the same one that kept her tied to him. It was tightening... snapping.
Later, Lucian entered her room without knocking. As always.
-Are you feeling all right? -he asked, his voice soft, almost loving.
Anne looked at him. And for the first time, she saw not the man who had rescued her, but the one who had turned her gratitude into a chain. The one who mistook protection for control, tenderness for possession.
-What would you do if I asked you to let me go? -she asked in a whisper.
Lucian stopped. His face hardened, but his voice did not change.
-Why would you ask me, if you know you love me?
And then he understood.
That "love" was a reflection of her fear of being alone. The echo of a broken child who mistook affection for salvation. It was not love. It was dependence. It was pain disguised as affection.
Ana lowered her gaze. Inside, something was breaking.
-Maybe... I only love you because I didn't know what real love was.
Lucian did not answer. But the silence said it all.
And at that moment, Ana felt the hardest betrayal: not Lucian's.
But that of her own heart.