He arrives early.
I'm still in my room, second-guessing my choice of dress—the emerald again, because it makes me feel strong—when Mina announces that Duke Vere's carriage has been spotted approaching the estate.
"He's not supposed to be here for another twenty minutes," I say, more to myself than to her.
"Perhaps he's eager, my lady." Mina adjusts the final pin in my hair. "There. You look lovely. And formidable."
Formidable. Good. I need formidable today.
I descend the stairs slowly, giving myself time to breathe. Through the window, I can see Cassian stepping out of his carriage. He's alone this time—no Daniel, no servants. Just him, dressed in dark gray that makes his eyes look like storm clouds.
He's pacing by the rose garden entrance when I emerge. Three steps forward, three back, his movements controlled but restless. I've never seen him pace before. Cassian Vere doesn't do restless.
He notices me immediately, stopping mid-step.
"Lady Adeline." A bow, precise as always. "Thank you for agreeing to meet."
"You're early."
"I..." He hesitates, something almost like embarrassment crossing his face. "Yes. I apologize. I was ready and decided waiting at the estate seemed counterproductive."
So he'd been as nervous as I am. The thought is oddly humanizing.
"Shall we walk?" I gesture toward the garden path. "It's a pleasant afternoon."
We fall into step side by side, maintaining proper distance. The silence stretches, neither of us apparently knowing how to begin this "honest conversation" we've both agreed to.
Finally, Cassian breaks it: "Your garden is beautiful. The roses especially."
Small talk. We're defaulting to small talk after everything.
"They were my mother's passion," I say. "I've tried to maintain them as she would have wanted."
"She passed when you were young?"
"Twelve." The old grief is distant now, softened by time. "A fever. It came quickly."
"I'm sorry." He sounds like he means it. "My father died when I was seven. Also sudden. A riding accident."
I didn't know that. In three years of engagement, I'd never learned that basic fact about him.
"That must have been difficult," I offer.
"It was a relief, actually." The words are flat, matter-of-fact. "He was... volatile. Violent when the mood struck him. The duchy was better off without him."
I stop walking, staring at him. Cassian keeps going for a few steps before realizing I'm no longer beside him.
"What?" He turns back, genuinely confused.
"You just told me your father's death was a relief. That he was violent."
"Yes. It's relevant to understanding my family situation."
"It's also incredibly personal." I search his face. "The kind of thing people don't usually share with near-strangers."
He considers this. "You asked me at our last meeting to tell you something real. Something true about myself. I'm attempting to do that."
"By leading with childhood trauma?"
A ghost of a smile crosses his face—there and gone so quickly I almost miss it. "Perhaps I'm not skilled at this. Honest conversation, I mean. I'm more accustomed to political negotiations where everyone maintains careful facades."
"I've noticed." I resume walking, and he falls in beside me again. "So your father was violent. Your mother raised you after his death?"
"Yes. She was determined that I would be nothing like him. Controlled where he was volatile. Measured where he was impulsive." His voice is still flat, reciting facts. "She succeeded."
"At what cost?"
The question slips out before I can stop it. Too personal, too probing. But Cassian doesn't deflect.
"At the cost of feeling much of anything," he says quietly. "But given the alternative, it seemed worthwhile."
We walk in silence for a moment. I'm processing this new information, fitting it into what I already know. The curse that makes emotions painful. A violent father and a controlling mother. A child learning that feeling nothing was safer than feeling too much.
It doesn't excuse how he treated me in the first timeline. But it begins to explain the ice.
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask. "Yesterday you couldn't tell me anything personal. Today you're sharing your childhood trauma. What changed?"
"I spent two days thinking about what you said. That I didn't know you, hadn't bothered to ask." He stops walking, turning to face me fully. "You were right. I approached our potential marriage as a political arrangement, never considering that you might want—deserve—to be seen as an individual."
"And now?"
"Now I'm attempting to remedy that failure." His gray eyes are steady on mine. "By offering the same vulnerability I'm asking from you. If I want to know you, it seems only fair that you know me as well."
The logic is sound. The execution is clumsy—leading with his father's violence and emotional repression isn't exactly comfortable territory. But there's something genuine in the attempt that catches me off guard.
"Alright," I say slowly. "Honest conversation. No political facades."
"No facades," he agrees.
We resume walking. The roses sway in a light breeze, their scent heavy in the warm afternoon air.
"Tell me about your business venture," Cassian says. "Daniel mentioned you'd been in the city meeting with a merchant consortium."
I glance at him sharply. "How did Daniel know that?"
"He has his sources. And before you worry—he only mentioned it because he was impressed. Apparently negotiating mining partnerships isn't typical behavior for noble ladies."
There's no judgment in his tone. If anything, he sounds... curious.
"It's not typical because we're not supposed to have ambitions beyond marriage," I say, testing his reaction. "Remember? You were surprised when I mentioned wanting a life of my own."
"I was." He doesn't deny it. "I'm reconsidering that surprise. Tell me about the partnership."
So I do. I explain the Moonstone Trading Company, Jin Sera's expertise, the silver mine potential. Cassian listens with what appears to be genuine interest, occasionally asking questions that demonstrate he actually understands business operations.
"That's ambitious," he says when I finish. "And strategically sound. If the survey confirms your estimates, you'll have significant independent income within two years."
"That's the goal."
"Why?" He's watching me closely. "Most women in your position would be seeking another marriage prospect, not building businesses. What are you trying to achieve?"
The question is direct but not judgmental. I consider how honest to be.
"Independence," I finally say. "The freedom to choose my own path without being dependent on a husband's goodwill or my family's political needs."
"You don't want to marry at all?"
"I don't want to have to marry." I meet his eyes. "There's a difference. If I choose marriage someday, I want it to be because I've found someone I actually want to build a life with. Not because I need financial security or political protection."
"That's..." He trails off, seeming to search for words. "Unexpectedly radical. For a noblewoman."
"Is it radical to want agency over my own life?"
"In our society? Yes." He says it flatly, without apology. "You're fighting against centuries of expectation. Most people would call that foolish."
"What would you call it?"
He's quiet for a moment, clearly thinking. "Brave," he finally says. "And lonely. Choosing a path no one else understands tends to be isolating."
The observation is unexpectedly perceptive. And accurate—I am lonely, in this new life I'm building. Mirae's friendship helps, but she's trapped in her own cage. Father supports me but doesn't fully understand. And everyone else thinks I've lost my mind.
"Loneliness is survivable," I say. "Losing myself isn't."
Cassian stops walking again, studying me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. "When you refused me, you said marrying me would destroy you slowly. Did you mean that literally?"
The question catches me off guard. I expect deflection or offense, not genuine inquiry.
"Yes," I say honestly. "I meant it literally."
"Why?" There's no defensiveness in his voice. Just curiosity. "What about marriage to me specifically would be destructive?"
How do I explain? I can't tell him I've already lived it, already experienced the slow erosion of self that came from loving someone who didn't see me.
"Because I would have spent our entire marriage trying to earn scraps of your attention," I say instead. "Changing myself to fit what I thought you wanted. Making myself smaller and quieter and more palatable, hoping that if I just tried hard enough, you might notice me."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It would have been fatal." I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warm afternoon. "Not physically. But everything that makes me myself—my ambitions, my opinions, my dreams—I would have sacrificed all of it trying to be the perfect duchess. And eventually there would have been nothing left but an empty shell performing a role."
Cassian is very quiet. When I glance at him, his expression is difficult to read—something between understanding and pain.
"I wouldn't have wanted that," he says softly. "An empty shell."
"Wouldn't you?" I challenge. "You told me yourself what you envisioned—a competent household manager. Someone to handle social obligations while you focused on politics and military affairs. That's exactly what an empty shell would provide."
"No." His voice is firm. "That's what I thought I wanted because I didn't understand the alternative. But Adeline, listen to me—" He steps closer, not touching but near enough that I can see the flecks of darker gray in his eyes. "I don't want you to be empty. I don't want anyone to be empty."
"Then what do you want?"
The question hangs between us. I watch him struggle with it, see the calculations running behind his eyes.
"I don't know," he finally admits. "I've spent my entire life focused on duty and control. Personal wants seemed irrelevant. Dangerous, even. But you—" He stops, seeming to reconsider his words. "You make me question whether I've been approaching everything wrong."
"How so?"
"You asked me at our last meeting to tell you something true about myself, and I couldn't answer. I've spent the past three days thinking about that. About why I had nothing to offer." He runs a hand through his hair—an uncharacteristically frustrated gesture. "I realized it's because I don't know what's true about me beyond my roles and responsibilities. I'm the Duke of Vere. I'm a military commander. I'm my mother's son and my father's opposite. But underneath all that? I have no idea who I am."
The honesty is stark, almost painful. I see vulnerability in his expression that I didn't think him capable of showing.
"That's terrifying," I say quietly. "Isn't it? Realizing you don't know yourself."
"Yes." Simple, direct. "And you—you seem so certain of who you are. What you want. Where you're going. I find that..." He trails off again.
"What?"
"Compelling." The word seems to cost him something to say. "Disturbing. Both at once."
I don't know what to do with that admission. With the idea that I've somehow disturbed the unshakeable Duke Vere.
"I'm not as certain as I seem," I admit. "I'm terrified most of the time. Scared I'm making catastrophic mistakes, that my business partnership will fail, that refusing you was the wrong choice."
"Do you think it was wrong?"
"No." The answer is immediate, certain. "It was right for me. Even if it makes my life harder."
Cassian nods slowly, like I've confirmed something he suspected. "That's the difference between us, I think. You're willing to choose difficulty if it means being true to yourself. I've spent my life choosing whatever makes things easier to control."
"Control isn't inherently bad."
"No. But control without purpose is just..." He gestures vaguely. "Empty performance. Which is what you accused me of offering."
We've somehow ended up back at my mother's favorite bench, the one where we'd sat during our first meeting. Cassian settles onto it without asking, and after a moment, I sit beside him.
"Why did you really want this meeting?" I ask. "You said you wanted honest conversation, but Cassian—we're not getting married. We barely know each other. Why does it matter whether I understand you or not?"
He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer. Then: "Because no one has ever looked at me the way you did when I said I couldn't love anyone."
"How did I look at you?"
"Like I'd confirmed your saddest suspicions. Like I'd proven myself exactly the broken thing you'd feared I was." His hands clench on his knees. "And you were right. I am broken. But having you see it so clearly—having you walk away because of it—that disturbed something I didn't know could be disturbed."
My breath catches. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I spent two days unable to focus on anything but our conversation. Replaying your words. Trying to understand why your opinion mattered when hundreds of other opinions never have." He turns to face me, and there's something almost desperate in his eyes. "I mean Daniel accused me of obsessing over you, and I couldn't deny it because he was right."
The word 'obsessing' lands between us like a stone.
"That's not healthy," I say carefully.
"I know." He laughs, bitter. "Nothing about my response to you has been healthy or logical. By all rational measures, I should have accepted your refusal and moved on. Instead I'm here, trying to understand someone who doesn't want to be understood by me."
"I didn't say that."
"Didn't you?" His eyes search my face. "You made it very clear you want nothing to do with me. That you find me cold and incapable of human connection."
"I said you seemed incapable of it. That's different from being inherently incapable."
"Is it?"
I consider the question seriously. The Cassian I knew in my first life was exactly what I'd accused him of being—cold, distant, emotionally unavailable. But this Cassian, sitting beside me admitting to obsession and broken places, is someone different.
Or maybe he's not different. Maybe I just never looked closely enough before.
"I don't know," I admit. "Are you capable of connection? Of actually seeing someone beyond what they can provide?"
"I want to be." The words are quiet, almost lost in the sound of wind through roses. "That's not the same as being capable, I know. But Adeline—you asked what I want, and that's the closest I can come to an answer. I want to be capable of the things you described. Connection. Understanding another person. Maybe even—"
He stops abruptly.
"Even what?"
"Nothing. It's too much to articulate."
"Try," I press. "You wanted honest conversation."
Cassian takes a breath, seeming to steel himself. "Even feeling something real. Something beyond this constant control and emptiness. You spoke about not wanting to be an empty shell, and I realized—that's what I already am. A shell performing expected roles. And for the first time in my life, that feels like a problem worth solving."
The vulnerability in his voice does something to my chest. Makes it tight and warm and uncomfortable all at once.
This is dangerous. He's dangerous—not because he's cold, but because he's showing me he might not be. And if he's not completely empty, if there's something human underneath that perfect control, then everything I've decided about him becomes complicated.
"What do you want from me?" I ask quietly. "Really. What's the goal of these meetings?"
"I don't know," he admits. "Understanding, maybe. Or proof that connection is possible, even for someone like me. Or—" He laughs, self-deprecating. "Or I'm just obsessing over the first person who ever truly refused me, and this is all pathetic fixation rather than genuine growth."
"It could be both," I point out.
"That's a terrifying thought."
"Good." I stand, suddenly needing distance. "You should be terrified. Because Cassian, I need you to understand—I'm not going to be your redemption project. I'm not going to fix you or teach you how to feel or serve as proof that you're capable of connection."
"I'm not asking you to—"
"Aren't you?" I face him fully. "You want me to show you what real connection looks like. To help you understand yourself. To somehow make you less empty. But that's not my responsibility. I'm building my own life, Cassian. I don't have the energy to build you one too."
He stands as well, and I realize we're standing very close now. Close enough that I can see the tension in his jaw, the way his hands clench at his sides like he wants to reach for me but won't let himself.
"You're right," he says. "That's not fair to ask. But Adeline—can I at least understand you? Not for my benefit, but because you're the most interesting person I've encountered in years and I'd like to actually know you?"
"Why?" The question comes out harder than intended. "So you can add me to your collection of things you understand but don't feel anything about?"
"No." His voice drops, intense. "Because when you speak, I actually want to listen. When you challenge me, I feel something almost like—" He stops, pressing a hand to his chest. "Like discomfort. Or interest. Or something I don't have words for because I've spent so long avoiding anything that might hurt."
I watch him struggle with the confession, see genuine confusion and maybe even pain cross his features.
The curse. He's feeling something strong enough that the curse is responding.
"You should go," I say, gentler now. "Before whatever you're feeling gets worse."
"What if I don't want to go?"
"Cassian—"
"What if I want to stay here, in this garden, having this conversation, even if it's uncomfortable?" His eyes are storm-gray and intense. "What if uncomfortable is better than empty?"
The question hangs between us, weighted with implications I'm not ready to examine.
"Then you're braver than I thought," I finally say. "Or more foolish."
"Probably both." A real smile crosses his face—small, but genuine. "I'm discovering I'm full of contradictions. It's deeply unsettling."
Despite myself, I smile back. "Welcome to being human. It's uncomfortable for everyone."
"Is it always this confusing?"
"Usually worse."
He laughs—an actual laugh, surprised and real. The sound transforms his face, making him look younger, less burdened.
And god help me, it makes him beautiful.
I look away quickly, before he can see whatever my expression is revealing.
"I should go inside," I say. "This conversation is getting too complicated."
"May I see you again?" The question is immediate, almost urgent. "Not tomorrow—I know I'm being too intense. But perhaps next week? Same terms as today. Honest conversation, no obligations."
I should say no. Should maintain boundaries and focus on my own path.
But I hear myself say: "Next week. But Cassian—if this becomes about you trying to prove something or fix yourself through me, I'm ending it immediately. Understood?"
"Understood." He bows, formal but somehow also warm. "Thank you, Adeline. For your honesty. And your patience."
I watch him walk back toward his carriage, his movements controlled but somehow less rigid than before.
What have I just agreed to?
What am I doing, meeting repeatedly with the man I refused to marry?
I don't have answers. Only the strange warmth in my chest and the memory of his laugh, genuine and unguarded.
Dangerous. This is so dangerous.
But I can't seem to make myself care.