"She didn't."
The words fall out of me when the black sedan pulls to the curb and the back door swings open to reveal not a driver, not Tessa's apologetic face, but Caspian.
He sits in the leather interior like he belongs there, like he belongs everywhere, his ice-blue eyes finding mine with an intensity that makes my stomach flip in ways I refuse to acknowledge.
"Before you slam the door in my face, hear me out."
He holds up both hands in surrender.
"Tessa agreed to this. I called her, explained what I wanted to show you, and she thought it was worth your time."
"Tessa betrayed me to arrange a secret meeting with my estranged husband? That doesn't sound like her at all."
"I can be very persuasive when I need to be." A ghost of his old smile crosses his face. "And she loves you enough to want you to have all the information before you make any permanent decisions."
I should walk away. I should go back inside, lock the door, and pretend this never happened.
Instead, I find myself sliding into the seat beside him.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere I should have taken you a long time ago."
He signals the driver, and the car pulls smoothly into traffic.
"Just trust me for the next hour. That's all I'm asking."
The city gives way to suburbs, brownstones melting into tree-lined streets. We pass schools and parks, the kind of neighborhood I used to dream about before I learned that dreams were just disappointments waiting to happen.
The car stops in front of a white colonial with blue shutters and a wraparound porch.
"What is this place?"
"Ours." He steps out and offers me his hand. "I bought it three years ago, right after we got married. I was going to surprise you on our first anniversary, but then the Singapore merger happened, and I told myself I'd do it the next year instead. And then the miscarriage, and everything fell apart, and I just kept waiting for the right moment that never came."
I don't take his hand, but I do follow him up the stone path.
The front door opens onto hardwood floors and high ceilings, empty rooms flooded with afternoon light.
"I picked it because of the backyard."
He leads me to the French doors at the back of the house.
"You mentioned once that you wanted your children to have space to run around, to catch fireflies in summer and build snowmen in winter. I remembered every word."
The yard stretches out green and endless, big enough for a swing set, a treehouse, and a lifetime of memories we never got to make.
"Why are you showing me this now?"
"Because I want you to understand that I always imagined a future with you, even when I was too broken to build it."
He turns to face me, and the vulnerability in his expression makes something crack in my chest.
"I want us to be a family again, Elara. You, me, and Milo. I don't care about the paternity test. I don't care whose DNA runs through his veins. He's yours, which means he's mine, and I will love him every day of his life if you let me."
"Caspian, you can't just buy a house and expect that to fix everything we've been through."
"I know that. I know I have years of damage to undo, and I know you have every reason not to trust me."
He steps closer, close enough that I can smell his cologne, feel the warmth radiating from his body.
"But I'm asking for a chance to try. One chance to prove that I can be the man you married, the man I should have been all along."
His hand rises to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone with a tenderness that makes my eyes sting.
"I love you, Elara. I never stopped."
When he kisses me, it's soft and tentative, asking permission with every gentle pressure of his lips.
I let myself sink into it. Let myself remember what it felt like to be held by this man, to believe in the promises he made on that rooftop with the terrible champagne.
His hands slide to my waist, pulling me closer. The kiss deepens, and I feel him reaching for more—fingers finding the hem of my blouse, breath quickening against my mouth.
I pull back.
"I can't do this." My voice comes out ragged. "Not yet."
"Tell me what's wrong." He doesn't release me, but he doesn't push either. "Tell me what you need me to do."
"It's not just you, Caspian. It's your family. Every time I start to believe things could be different, another Voss shows up to remind me exactly where I stand."
"I'll handle my parents. I'll make sure they never—"
"You've been making promises about handling your parents for three years."
His jaw tightens.
"This is about Rhys, isn't it?"
I don't deny it.
"You've hurt me multiple times, Caspian. Over and over, in ways that still wake me up at night. Rhys hasn't hurt me once. Maybe that doesn't make him a better man, but it makes him a safer one. And right now, with everything that's happening, safe is all I can afford to want."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we're not saying.
"I'll take you home."
His voice is carefully neutral, but I can see the devastation swimming behind his eyes.
"But this house isn't going anywhere, Elara. Neither am I."
The drive back passes in silence.
When I climb the stairs to Tessa's apartment, I'm already composing the lecture I'm going to deliver about boundaries and consent and the betrayal of coordinating secret rendezvous with soon-to-be ex-husbands.
But the door swings open before I can knock, and Tessa's face stops every word in my throat.
She's trembling, her brown eyes wide with something I've never seen in years of friendship: fear.
"What happened? Where's Milo? Is he okay?"
"Milo's fine, he's sleeping in the nursery. I picked him up early from daycare because I had a bad feeling, and thank God I did because—"
She gestures toward the kitchen counter.
"Someone left that outside the door while I was getting him settled."
I move past her on legs that don't feel like mine.
A box sits on the counter, lid removed, and the smell hits me before my eyes can process what I'm seeing.
Inside, nestled in black tissue paper, lie two dozen white roses.
The same white roses from that morning, the ones that made me cry with hope, except these have been left to rot.
Petals brown and slick with decay, stems covered in something gray and fuzzy that writhes when I look closer.
Maggots.
Dozens of them, fat and pale, burrowing through the decomposed flowers.
And in the center, half-buried in the putrid mess, a Polaroid.
Me, in the emerald gown, stepping through the palazzo archway.
My face has been scratched out with something sharp enough to tear through the glossy surface.
My hands go ice-cold, and a certainty settles into my bones like frost.
"I have to move. Tonight, tomorrow, as soon as I can pack what matters."
I turn to face her.
"This isn't about me anymore, Tessa. Whoever's doing this knows where you live. They know Milo is here. I can't put you in the middle of whatever war I've stumbled into."
"Elara, you can't just run again. Running is what got you into this mess in the first place."
"Running kept my son safe for ten months."
I'm already moving toward the nursery.
"I'll find somewhere else to stay. And you'll go back to your normal life away from the Voss family and their poison."