Chapter 16
Mirelle and I married when Lily was seven.
Small ceremony.
No alliance.
No family negotiation.
Beatrice attended as grandmother.
Nothing more.
Odessa did not attend.
No reason.
Lily carried flowers.
Halfway down the aisle she dropped them and kept walking.
Perfect.
I looked at Mirelle.
Years earlier she stood blindfolded in my ballroom while Odessa mocked the possibility that her daughter was being taken away.
Now she walked toward me with both eyes uncovered.
No one steering her.
No one speaking for me.
No hidden child.
No secret mother.
The contrast was almost too obvious.
I chose not to romanticize it.
May you like
We had lost years.
A happy ending does not refund them.
