The palace was too quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the kind that clung to Lydia's skin like smoke, a silence thick with suspicion and unspoken words. The kind that made her heels echo like gunshots across the marble halls. She was no stranger to silence. She had lived inside it long before she stepped into Adrian's world. But this... this was different.
This was a house divided.
She wrapped her shawl tighter around her arms as she walked toward the garden—Adrian's sanctuary, not hers. They hadn't spoken properly in days. Not since the night of the wedding. Not since he'd touched her like he owned her soul... and then retreated like she was poison.
He had shut her out, once again.
So she found refuge not in him, but in the arms of books, in idle conversation with the staff, and unbeknownst to her a snake dressed in silk words and careful listening.
His name was Cesare.
He was charming in a subtle way, quiet and polite, with just the right touch of melancholy in his voice to appear harmless. He wasn't new to the estate, just… unnoticed. He worked with the estates' documents, a clerk to the family's land lawyers. He had been around for years, floating on the fringes of Adrian's empire like smoke. No one ever questioned him. That was his gift.
And it was Lydia's curse that she did not question him either.
She found him by the reflecting pool that day, eyes cast down as if he hadn't meant to be seen.
"Oh ...I didn't mean to intrude," she said, halting.
He stood with a slight bow. "My lady. This is your home, not mine. I was only taking in the air."
She hesitated. "You work with the land records?"
"Yes," he replied. "Though I often find paper more predictable than people."
She almost laughed. Almost. "A dangerous opinion in a house full of secrets."
He looked at her then. Not with interest, but with recognition. Like he knew. Like he saw beyond the painted surface of her expression.
"Secrets," he said slowly, "are only dangerous when left to fester in the dark."
That was how it began.
A seed of conversation. A shared moment of silence. A harmless exchange, or so she thought.
Cesare never pushed. He merely listened.
And that was why Lydia began to speak.
She didn't trust easily not since her mother's betrayal, not since she'd been sold into this gilded cage in Adrian's name. But Cesare didn't ask her to trust him. He didn't even offer sympathy. He simply asked, "And how do you sleep, Lady Lydia?"
"Badly."
"Because of him?"
She blinked.
"Forgive me," he added smoothly, "I only ask because the estate speaks of your... distance. You are alone in a house that was meant to be your sanctuary."
"I was never meant to be anyone's wife."
His smile was polite. "Especially not to a man like Adrian De Luca."
Something twisted in her chest. "You know him?"
"Enough to fear him."
"Should I fear him too?"
Cesare gave a slow, deliberate shrug. "That depends on how much of your heart you've given him."
She turned away, pretending to admire the roses. But she couldn't stop thinking about his words.
That was Cesare's talent he never told her what to think. He simply whispered the doubt she already carried.
That night, she dreamt of shadows.
She dreamt of Adrian's hands on her skin, warm and cruel, of words spoken behind locked doors, of a war she could not see but knew was drawing close. She woke with sweat on her brow and a coldness in her chest.
And Adrian was gone from their bed.
Again.
Down the corridor, Adrian was in his grandfather's old study. He stared at the files Cesare had once touched. Something didn't sit right with him. Something about the estate. About the finances. About the movements of his people. And about Lydia.
She had changed.
She had pulled back, no longer meeting his gaze for too long, her voice losing its usual edge of fire. She was... distracted. Like her heart was elsewhere. Or worse—being pulled away from him.
He'd seen this before. In the world of enemies, distance was always the first betrayal.
And betrayal was never far when love began to burn.
The room was quiet, but not in the way that soothed. The silence was laced with unspoken words, questions that neither Lydia nor Adrian dared to voice.
Lydia sat by the fireplace, wrapped in a shawl of white cashmere, but it couldn't stop the cold creeping into her chest. It was a chill that came from doubt, the kind that didn't just arrive—it settled. Since the wedding, she had grown to understand Adrian in small fragments: his gestures, his restraint, the heaviness behind his silence. But lately, something had shifted. His eyes, once distant but honest, now seemed like veiled corridors—dark and hiding something.
Her fingers gripped the letter she'd received earlier that day. A message that came under the guise of kindness—from none other than Marcello Virelli, Adrian's long-time business associate. The man had shown her warmth. Reassurance. A gentle smile that Adrian rarely gave.
"You're brave to trust so easily, Lydia," he had told her, his tone soft, almost mournful. "But you should ask yourself… why Adrian keeps secrets from you."
That seed had been planted, and now it grew vines inside her.
Adrian stood in his private study, a place few ever dared enter. The fireplace crackled behind him as he reviewed the latest surveillance reports. Unfamiliar cars near the estate. Whispered messages intercepted. Someone was closing in but who?
He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Lydia had become quieter these past days. Her laughter now sounded like a song muffled by water. She no longer met his eyes when they were alone. She no longer reached for him in the night.
It hurt more than he could say.
She was slipping away.
And someone was helping her do it.
Lydia met Marcello again the next day. She didn't plan it. Or maybe she did, in the way one plans by simply hoping fate offers the opportunity.
They talked over coffee, away from the estate. She felt like she was doing something wrong, yet she didn't stop. Marcello listened.
And he told her more.
"Did you know Adrian's family had a hand in your stepmother's downfall?" he said gently. "That merger—your family's collapse—it wasn't all business, Lydia."
Her chest tightened.
"No," she said. "Adrian would've told me."
Marcello only gave her a sad smile. "Would he?"
Lydia returned home shaken, her head a maze of voices. She walked past Adrian without a word, her eyes cloudy.
That night, Adrian sat on the edge of their bed, staring at her sleeping form.
But she wasn't asleep.
And when she heard the door close behind him, she let the tear slip down her cheek.
The next morning, Adrian requested Marcello's file from his intelligence team.
He wasn't just guessing anymore.
He was certain: someone had gotten to Lydia.
And he would burn kingdoms to find out who.
As Lydia walked the garden alone, a shadow slipped beside her—Marcello.
"You need to choose soon, Lydia," he whispered, his lips dangerously close to her ear. "Before it's too late."
She turned to face him.
And Adrian watched from the balcony above, unseen.
His heart did not break.
It hardened.