I drew breath with more anxiety. I squeezed my flute until it started to crack. Wordlessly, I excused myself from the conversation I wasn’t participating in and moved past Magnus to the parlor.

She sat there alone, her eyes on her hands in her lap, her posture drooped.

Puffy cheeks. Red eyes. Smeared makeup.

Nothing hurt me more than seeing her like this.

It made me hate Raven more than I already did.

I moved to the seat beside her.

She turned to look at me, flinching slightly because she was so deep in thought that she didn’t know I was in the room until that moment. When she’d assumed it was a stranger, her features had tightened to hide her discomfort. But when she looked at me, her eyes watered again—because she knew she didn’t have to hide from me.

My hand moved into the back of her hair, and I brought her close to me, kissing her tears away, kissing her soft lips, kissing her jawline and neck, erasing her pain with my love. “Ne pleure pas, chérie.” Don’t cry, sweetheart. My hand cupped her cheek as I pulled away and looked at her.

Her eyes were dry now, but the effects of her sadness were still on her features.

I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and placed it in her hand.

The smile she gave was so genuine. I was always there for her—and she knew it. She clenched the tissue in her closed fingertips before she brought it to her face to clean up her tear-stained cheeks.

“Talk to me, chérie.” My entire world collapsed when hers did too. When she was unhappy, I was unhappy. This was a woman who deserved the world, and every time I failed to give that to her, my self-hatred grew.

She sniffled before she wiped her nose. “Raven…” She shook her head and said nothing more.

“You continue to wonder why I hate her. There’s your answer.”

Her arm hooked through mine, and she came closer to me. “She’s a good person. Better than me.”

“Untrue.” I looked at the most beautiful woman in the world, a woman who cared about people she shouldn’t, saw the good in the evil. That made her a saint in my opinion.

She sniffled again. “She doesn’t understand how I can feel anything for you.”

“It’s not her business to understand it.”

“I try to explain it to her, but it doesn’t come out right.”

Coming between us. Again.

“And the way she looks at me…it just makes me feel so terrible.”

“Hypocritical.”

“She said Magnus is different.”

He was different—but not that different. “He can leave the business any time he chooses. He voices his disagreements, but he doesn’t put his money where his mouth is. So, no, fucking hypocritical.”

“She said you’re a monster…”