Hadrian, his clothes torn to shreds, dignity stripped bare, and life barely clinging to him, stared at her with eyes still shimmering faintly with pride.
Lorraine could not suppress the flicker of surprise. Her father, her once mighty father, still clung to that hollow pride, as if it were a weapon capable of fending off his downfall. Was he that stupid? Or was pride so deeply woven into his blood that surrender was inconceivable?
She studied him closely.
In that broken, pitiful man before her, the dark desire she had carried, the desperate yearning for him to see her, to recognize her as worthy, had vanished like smoke in the wind.
It was almost laughable, really. Just hours ago… just yesterday, she would have given anything to hear him speak her name, even once, as a faint acknowledgment that she was something more than a mistake, more than a blemish upon his legacy.
But now?
