I Gave His Name to the Woman He Chose

I woke three days later in my own bed, with stitches in my side and a fever burning under my skin.

Mira, my maid, nearly dropped the glass in her hand. "Miss Grace. Thank God. I'll get Mr. Moretti."

"Don't." My voice came out rough. "Where is he?"

Mira's face gave me the answer before she spoke. "With Miss Isabella. She wasn't injured, but she has been... distressed. The doctor said she needs quiet and familiar company."

I closed my eyes. Of course.

The door opened that evening. Lucien stepped in, still in the same black shirt, his face drawn in a way I might have pitied once.

"Grace," he said. "I should have protected you."

I looked at him from the bed. "How is Isabella?"

He flinched. "She is shaken. She keeps waking up screaming. I came as soon as I could."

"Then go back."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like you don't care."

I almost smiled. He could ignore my pain, but not my indifference. That was the part he could not stand.

"I'm tired, Lucien."

He took a step closer. "I will make this up to you. Anything you want."

I had wanted him once. That was the only thing he could never give me.

"I want to sleep."

He stood there for a long moment, waiting for me to break first. When I did not, his phone rang. Isabella's name lit the screen.

I turned my face toward the window. "Go."

He left.

The moment his footsteps faded, I sat up and pulled the IV from my arm.

Mira gasped. "Miss Grace, you can't move."

"Pack the small case. Only the black clothes, my passport, and the papers in the blue folder."

"Are you leaving?"

"Yes."

She stared at me, frightened and relieved at the same time. Then she nodded and moved fast.

I had already traded the Vance signet for something better than Lucien's money: a signed Moretti release cutting the Vance estate free from his family's custody, plus a sponsor letter for Raven Wharf under my own name. His lawyers thought it was a jealous little stunt, a bride trying to prove she still mattered. By morning, those papers would be filed beyond Moretti reach. The Raven Wharf clearance sat against my ribs beneath my bandage, warm from my skin.

Before dawn, I went to Lucien's study.

The room looked exactly as it always had: dark wood, leather chairs, his father's portrait on the wall. I placed the gifts I had once given him on his desk. Cufflinks engraved with our initials. A watch I had saved six months to buy. A stack of letters he had kept but never answered.

Then I laid the amended marriage contract on top.

Beside Isabella's name, I wrote one line: You got what you wanted.

I walked out through the servants' corridor, past the kitchens, past the sleeping guards, and into the gray edge of morning.

A black town car waited by the side gate. Mira opened the door for me with shaking hands. "Where will you go?"

I looked back at Verona House one last time. "Somewhere he can't follow."

By the time Lucien returned to his study, the sun was coming up.

He found the cufflinks first. Then the letters. Then the contract.

For a long moment, he did not move.

At the bottom of the page, where his wife's name should have been, Isabella Vale stared back at him in clean black ink.

His voice, when it finally came, was low and dangerous.

"Where is Grace?"

The guard at the door went pale. "Sir... every record tied to Miss Vance has been wiped. Her phone is dead, the gate cameras are blank, and the plates on the car do not exist. We have no location."