Lucian Aldridge didn’t sleep. Not in the way normal people did.

At best, he drifted in and out, trapped in restless half-dreams and the suffocating weight of his own thoughts. At worst, he lay awake, listening to the silence, drowning in it.

Tonight was one of the bad nights.

The whiskey bottle was within reach. It always was.

But he didn’t touch it.

Instead, he sat at his desk, his fingers turning over an object in his hands, the metal cool and familiar against his skin. A watch—its glass cracked, the hands frozen at 3:42.

Vivian’s last gift.

A lifetime ago, she had slipped it onto his wrist with a teasing smile, whispering something about how he was always late for their dates.

Lucian had rolled his eyes. “I own half this city. They’ll wait.”

But she had only laughed, pressing a kiss to his jaw. “Not everything is about power, Lucian.”

Now, the watch was broken. Just like everything else.

Lucian exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. The house was quiet. Even Marcus had stopped hovering, which meant he was truly alone.

Or at least, he should have been.

But he wasn’t.

Not with her still here.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet.

—

Celeste moved carefully through the house, the shadows familiar now. She had learned the layout fast—out of necessity, out of survival. She knew which floorboards creaked, which doors stuck in their frames, and which parts of the house Lucian never touched.

She also knew where he disappeared to in the dead of night.

Which is why she wasn’t surprised when she found him in the study, a single lamp casting him in soft, golden light.

He was a mess.

Still unshaven, still looking like he had been dragged through hell. His shirt was wrinkled, the top buttons undone, and his dark hair fell carelessly over his forehead. A man who had once been polished, sharp, untouchable now sat slouched in his chair, looking—

Lost.

Her gaze dropped to the object in his hand. The watch.

Celeste hesitated in the doorway. “You should sleep.”

Lucian didn’t lift his head. “So should you.”

She folded her arms, leaning against the frame. “I will if you will.”

That got her a humorless chuckle. “Now you sound like a nagging wife.”

She rolled her eyes, stepping into the room. “Maybe you need one.”

Lucian hummed, twirling the watch between his fingers. The silence stretched between them, thick, heavy.

Then—so quietly she almost didn’t hear it—he asked, “Do you regret things?”

It was the first real thing he had asked her. A question stripped of anger, of indifference.

Celeste inhaled sharply, thrown off guard.

For a split second, she forgot who she was supposed to be.

And before she could stop herself, the truth slipped out.

“Every day.”

The moment the words left her lips, she knew she had made a mistake.

Lucian’s head tilted slightly, like he was listening to her in a way he hadn’t before.

Her stomach tightened. Idiot. Sloppy. Stupid.

She scrambled to recover. “I meant—”

“Don’t.” His voice was quiet, unreadable. “Don’t take it back.”

Celeste’s throat tightened.

Lucian turned the broken watch over once more, then finally set it on the desk with a sigh. “I think regret is worse than grief,” he muttered. “At least with grief, you know what you lost. With regret…” He trailed off.

With regret, you live with the what-ifs.

Celeste understood that too well.

She wanted to tell him that. To sit beside him and say, You’re not the only one drowning in it.

But she couldn’t.

Because the truth was dangerous. And she couldn’t afford to let him see it.

So instead, she swallowed hard, forcing her voice into something lighter. “You sound philosophical for a drunk man.”

Lucian exhaled a laugh, leaning back in his chair. “And you sound like someone who thinks she understands me.”

Celeste smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Maybe I do.”

Lucian didn’t answer.

He just sat there, blind gaze fixed on nothing, the broken watch sitting between them like a ghost of the past neither of them could outrun.

Celeste forced herself to walk away, to keep her strides even, to not let her shoulders tense under the weight of Lucian’s gaze.

Stupid. That had been close. Too close.

Her own words—Every day—echoed in her head like a warning siren. She had slipped, had let something real bleed through, and Lucian had felt it.

She couldn’t let that happen again.

Not when Emelia was already sharpening her knives.

Because the moment Celeste stepped out of the study, Emelia was waiting.

She was the kind of woman who never looked anything less than poised, even in the dim hallway light, her arms crossed, her diamond earrings catching the glow. But her eyes—those cold, calculating eyes—had never looked sharper.

Celeste barely had time to brace herself before Emelia spoke.

“Don’t get comfortable,” she said, voice smooth as silk, deadly as a blade. “You are a nobody, and you always will be.”

Celeste let the words roll off her, keeping her face neutral. “That’s original.”

Emelia’s lips curled in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You think this is a game?”

“No.” Celeste tilted her head. “I think you’re scared.”

Emelia didn’t flinch, but something flickered in her gaze—just for a second. A crack in the ice.

Interesting.

Celeste folded her arms. “I get it. You don’t like that Lucian doesn’t listen to you the way he used to. You don’t like that he’s… different with me.”

Emelia let out a quiet laugh, like Celeste was a child speaking nonsense. “He isn’t different with you, darling. He’s tolerating you. The same way I am.”

Celeste smiled, sweet and infuriating. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Emelia’s expression didn’t change, but Celeste could feel it—the shift, the tightening of her posture, the way her nails dug just a little too hard into her own arms.

Emelia Aldridge wasn’t used to being challenged.

Celeste, however, had spent her whole life challenging people who thought they were untouchable.

She turned to leave, satisfied. But before she could take a step, Emelia’s voice cut through the air like a whip.

“He’ll never trust you,” she murmured. “You can play this game all you want, but in the end, you’re replaceable.”

Celeste’s feet stopped moving.

She should have kept walking. Should have let Emelia think she had won.

Instead, she turned, meeting Emelia’s gaze head-on. “Funny,” she said, voice cool, steady. “I was about to say the same thing about you.”

Then, without another word, she walked away.