The air had turned cold and still, right up until Mia came walking over, her shadow stretching ahead of her.

“Please don't fight over me. I won't move in here, and I won't take anything that belongs to the Sheridan daughter-in-law.”

She slid the jade bracelet off her wrist,

and held it out to me.

I didn't reach for it.

I stepped around her and walked away.

Mia suddenly grabbed my hand, trying to press the thing into my palm.

Then her grip loosened,

and the bracelet dropped to the floor, breaking into pieces.

Mia knelt down to gather them up,

a few tears falling to the floorboards.

“I'm sorry. You have every right to be angry……Marion, please don't misunderstand things between Silas and me. Yes, we were once engaged, but that was a long time ago.”

A shard cut into her finger,

and Mia pulled her hand back with a wince of pain.

The next second, Silas had her hand cradled in his palm.

Silas stared at the string of blood beading at her fingertip,

his eyes cold enough to freeze,

and that look settled on my face.

“Mia didn't ask for a single thing, yet all night you've done nothing but go after her.”

“Do you have any idea that Mia's hands are for playing piano?”

I met his eyes without hesitation.

“You won't even hear a word of explanation?”

“What's left to explain? I've seen all of it with my own eyes.”

In that moment, Silas was terrifyingly calm,

and yet something dark seemed to gather all around him.

“Apologize. Admit you were wrong.”

At once I thought of him in that alley, of his fist coming down again and again on that man's face.

I took a step back.

“I'm sorry.”

Mia started to stand, then stumbled and fell back into Silas's arms.

“Marion……”

“Don't call me that. I don't have a sister.” I looked at her coldly.

“From the moment I walked in, you've never once called me his wife. That's because you still want to marry Silas.”

The color drained from Mia's face in an instant, and she waved her hands.

“No, that's not it. I never meant to break up your family……”

She clutched at Silas's sleeve, at a loss.

“Marion didn't break the bracelet on purpose. Let it go, please. Can't we just not fight?”

That one sentence was enough to thaw some of the chill around Silas.

He glanced at the broken pieces on the floor.

“I'll have it repaired for you.”

“That won't be necessary.”

I looked at Mia, curled up in his arms.

“First thing tomorrow morning, let's get divorced.”

I was done playing this sickening game.

Silas's expression didn't change.

His arm tightened around Mia, enough to make her frown without thinking.

“Over one little thing, you're threatening me with divorce?”

I said nothing and walked straight out of the courtyard, meaning to get in the car.

The driver blocked my path and gave a slight bow.

“Ma'am, Mr. Sheridan said you can't leave until tomorrow morning.”

I dug out my phone. The signal outside the gate was weak,

and the old estate was so remote it was nearly impossible to call a car.

It seemed I wouldn't be able to reach a lawyer until tomorrow.

I walked back inside,

into the room that had originally been prepared for Silas and me.

I gathered my clothes and moved them into the room next to Silas's.

I'd barely set my things down

when the housekeeper came in, his face full of apology.

“Ma'am, this was the master's old room. It can't be used without permission.”

Only then did I notice

that, compared to the other rooms, this one did carry a certain age.

Spotless as it was, you could still feel time itself frozen inside it.

I walked over to the long table inside, where a small cabinet with a lock sat.

It was an old-fashioned lock, the kind you had to turn to the right combination to open.

I thought for a moment, then dialed in 0205.

‘Click!’ The lock opened.

Seeing this, the housekeeper hurried out behind me.

But I no longer had the time to care, because that number—

it was Silas's lock screen code, the middle digits of his bank card PIN, the default combination on the door lock.

It was also Mia's birthday.

I opened the cabinet, and the first thing I saw was a stack of yellowed receipts.

Mia's male deskmate once brushed against her hand in class,

and after school Silas dragged him into an alley and beat him until the bones in his hand broke.

Mia scored badly on a test and got laughed at,

so Silas stood up for her.

Mia had suitors,

so Silas drove every one of them off.

On the back of one receipt,

in Mia's handwriting: "Mia will love you always and always."

Then another wire transfer slip,

every year, every month, even last month's record, all of it here.

Whenever Silas and I came back to the old estate, we slept in the room next door,

but he always came to bed late, always in this room, reading until deep into the night.

Only today did I understand why he loved this one old room above all the others.

Because what he loved was the desk lamp Mia had thrown away,

the water cup she'd made by hand before going abroad,

that line in her reply email: "If I were single again, would you still want me?"

And Silas's answer to her

was a property transfer agreement.

The Fullmoon Bay seaside home. The one I'd loved more than anything.

A weight came down on my shoulder.

Silas reached out and shoved me back, hard.

"What do you think you're doing!"

I couldn't keep my footing and dropped to one knee on the floor.

A dragging pain pulled low in my belly, and a few drops of blood ran down the inside of my thigh.

Silas put everything back and locked it again.

His fingertips rubbed twice over the numbers on the lock, then spun them back into place.

"Some things aren't yours to touch."

"If you love her that much, why did you agree to marry me before, and why won't you divorce me now?"

We spoke almost in unison. Silas's face went blank, then he looked away.

"What's between Mia and me now isn't what you think."

"She was mistreated and came home with nowhere to go, and I can help her. That's all."

I couldn't quite catch my breath. Bracing against the wall, I pulled myself up and looked at the drops of blood on the floor.

When I was kicked in my pregnant belly, Silas couldn't help me,

but no matter what it was for Mia, he would cross any line to help her.

Just as the smell of blood seemed to reach the tip of Silas's nose,

the housekeeper appeared in the doorway.

"Sir, Miss Winfield had a bad fright and she's running a bit of a fever. Would you like to go check on her?"

When I burned at a hundred and four, I wanted Silas to stay home.

He answered me: I'm not a doctor, what good would staying home do.

Now, he spared me a single glance.

"Go back to your room. We'll talk later. I'm going to see Mia."

He took a few steps, and I called after him.

"Silas, my stomach hurts…"

Silas turned and saw the streaks of blood on my thigh,

and heard the coughing from the bedroom across the hall.

"You bled before too, and the doctor said it was nothing."

"If it really hurts, come find me again."

Nothing.

My heart dropped to the bottom of a pit.

My hand settled over my belly.

In the middle of the night, several servants were woken to bring tea and water and fetch medicine for Mia.

Silas kept vigil at her bedside, watching the pallor of her face.

Once she was fast asleep,

Silas rubbed the bridge of his nose and walked out,

asking a servant in passing,

"Has Marion gone back to her room to sleep?"

The servant stammered,

and in the end mumbled it out anyway.

Silas's pupils shrank,

as if he'd heard something unthinkable,

and his voice rose before he could stop it.

"What did you say. Say it again!"