"I'm at the estate. I don't want to go to the park today."
There was a brief pause before Ansel spoke again, still trying to reassure me.
"Alright, I'll come home right away to be with you."
He didn't question why I had canceled.
It wasn't that his love for me was so deep that he could overlook my whims. It was simply that he had successfully offered the blood-bound ring to Elara in that carefully orchestrated setting. I was merely his backup plan for when the proposal didn't go as expected.
As Ansel walked in, I was just coming out of the bathroom. Seeing Elara behind him, I couldn't help but frown.
"Why did you bring her here?" I asked warningly.
Was he really so eager to rub my face in it?
Ansel, looking a bit guilty, rubbed his nose. "Serafina, I ran into Elara downstairs and found out she lives on the next block over. She heard you were back in Clearmont Harbor and insisted on coming up to apologize…"
I watched him coldly, unimpressed by his performance. The compound was quiet around us, the kind of silence that settles in a house where the wrong word can change everything. One of Ansel's men stood just outside the door, close enough to hear, pretending not to.