PAIGE
I just stared at Suzume, my brain trying to process her words like they were a foreign language. Melted him? The man was carved from ice and arrogance. He didn't melt; he incinerated.
Suzume wasn't finished. She leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial whisper that felt too big for this sunny, polite setting. "Look, I'll be blunt. Reomen has had… conquests. Pretty little things who knew the score. A night, maybe two. A transaction. But he never looked at any of them. He never brought them here."
She gestured around us at the sprawling estate, the quiet, powerful money everywhere. "This is his inner circle. And you're the first woman he's ever walked into it with." She let that sink in, her eyes serious now. "So it's one of two things. Either you've somehow gotten a hold of his actual, beating heart… or he's always loved you. Even before all… this." She waved a hand, vaguely encompassing my fall from grace and recent rise.
