“Sorry.” Caroline grimaced. “I didn’t mean to be heteronormative. It’s just, you only ever hear about men doing those things. It’s always so-and-so and sons on the business marquees. It’s always men who get jobs for their mistresses. You never hear of rich women pulling those strings, do you?”

Talia shrugged. “Maybe they have higher moral standards.”

“And isn’t that some shite?” Caroline laughed as the van came to a stop inside the castle gate. “I long for the day when a sugar mama who actually believes in a project is as valid a funding source as good old-fashioned nepotism.”

The intimacy coordinator was still chuckling at her own joke as she hopped out, but Sophia made no move to leave as Talia met her gaze and arched an eyebrow.

Her ribs tightened like a clamp around her heart and lungs as all the implication of that questioning stare and the conversation that had preceded it pressed down on her chest. Every old impulse screamed with the desire to run back toward the castle, to say she’d been wrong, that they could have everything they ever wanted, if only Vic would give up her birthright and they would both sacrifice every ideal they held true.

At another point in her life, the choice wouldn’t have just been easy, it would’ve been downright enjoyable, but she simply wasn’t the woman she’d been even a few weeks ago. She had neither the words nor the will to explain the transformation, and she suspected it might haunt her for the rest of her life. But knowing those things did little to lessen the sense of permanence descending around her.

Finally, she shook her head.

Apparently, the fates weren’t just cruel, they were downright masochistic.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Vic jogged up the main staircase, her sensible heels clacking against the stone stairs and her own feet with equal sharpness. Her whole body ached, and her vision had begun to blur hours ago, but her mind hummed with a thrilling rush of possibilities. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such a pleasurable sense of anticipation about anything other than Sophia.

She pulled up short just outside of the dining room and struggled to catch her breath more than a single flight of stairs warranted. Sophia had never been far from her thoughts all afternoon, but until this moment she’d been able to keep the pain in her periphery. Now she braced herself for the onslaught she would undoubtedly have to face head on.

Lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the heavy doors to see both her parents sitting in their usual spots at one end of the long table. They were still dressed in their business clothes, adding an air of formality to an already ostentatious setting, but her father at least smiled at her entrance.

“Sorry, love, we started without you.”