The way he said it... casual, matter-of-fact, like he was discussing the weather rather than my replacement made my skin prickle with something I recognized immediately because I'd felt it before.
Jealousy.
Sharp and vicious and absolutely unwelcome.
The same feeling that had plagued me for years watching Caelen with Ophelia. Watching him smile at her with genuine warmth while looking at me with barely concealed contempt. Watching him choose her over and over and over again until I'd learned to expect the rejection, to armor myself against it, to pretend it didn't tear pieces off my soul every single time.
And now I was feeling it again. For a different man. In a different empire. Because apparently I was constitutionally incapable of learning from past mistakes.
