"Ask me," Alistair demanded, his voice rough from whiskey, his walls crumbling for the first time.
The library was a cavern of shadows, the only light a single amber pool spilling from a green-shaded desk lamp. The scent of old leather and peat smoke from the dying fire clung to the air, thick and suffocating. He stood by the mantelpiece, a crystal tumbler dangling from his fingers, his silhouette a stark, broken line against the glow of the embers. The controlled billionaire was gone, replaced by a man frayed at the edges, his tie loose, his hair disheveled by his own restless hands.
Elara stood her ground in the center of the priceless Isfahan rug, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. The confrontation in the garden had shifted something between them, stripping away the pretense of patron and artist, leaving only the raw, bleeding wound of their shared history. Julian's confession hung in the silence between them, a ghost they could no longer ignore.
"Ask me what you really want to know," he repeated, his gaze locking with hers. In the dim light, his eyes were not cold, but haunted, the silver depths churning with a pain so profound it stole the air from the room. The command was a gauntlet thrown, an invitation into the labyrinth of his torment.
This was the precipice. To step forward was to fall into the abyss with him. To step back was to remain forever in the gilded cage of his revenge. She thought of the sketchbook, of the hidden study, of Julian's slurred words. He carries it with him, like a brand.
Her mouth went dry. The words felt like shards of glass in her throat. She could feel the weight of the past decade pressing down on her, the ghost of his father a silent spectator in the room. The fire crackled, a soft, mocking applause.
She took a single, shaky step forward. The floorboard creaked under her foot, the sound unnaturally loud in the tense silence.
Her voice, when it came, was a whisper, but it cleaved through the room like a gunshot.
"What did the note from your father say?"
The effect was instantaneous, catastrophic.
Alistair went rigid. The color drained from his face, leaving a stark, bloodless mask. The crystal tumbler slipped from his nerveless fingers, shattering on the marble hearth in an explosion of glittering shards and amber liquid that looked like spilled blood. The sound echoed in the vast room, a symphony of ruin.
He stood so abruptly his heavy chair screeched backward and toppled over with a crash that shook the floor. The sound was violent, final. His chest heaved, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists at his sides. The raw, unfiltered agony on his face was more terrifying than any fury she had ever witnessed. It was the face of a man whose foundational truth had just been detonated.
His eyes, wide and wild with a pain so deep it seemed to fracture the very air around him, pinned her to the spot.
"Who told you that?" he snarled, the words a guttural, wounded-animal sound, ripped from a place of such profound betrayal that it stole her breath.