He Chose Another Heir Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 20
At last, cracks appeared in the mask Ophelia had worn for six years.
I sat at my mother’s bedside, a storm of shock and anger churning inside me.
But deeper than that was a terrifying emptiness.
There was no wild joy, no desire to recalculate who owed whom.
Once the deepest wound has scarred over, a truth that arrives too late can no longer mend the heart.
I stood, walked past Ophelia, and pulled open the hospital room door.
Dante followed me out without a single question.
He bought a hot coffee from the vending machine and handed it to me, then leaned against the hallway wall with that same unlit cigarette between his teeth.
“You’re not going to ask?” I wrapped my hands around the paper cup.
“Ask what?”
“If I’m hurting.”
He looked at me.
“Your face says it all.”
“What does it say?”
“That you’re still holding yourself together.” One corner of his mouth tilted up. “Just like that time in Paris, when your lips were blue from the cold and you still told me you weren’t freezing.”