The morning after Adrian's command, the Harrington estate felt different—subtly, silently, but undeniably. An invisible tension threaded itself through the corridors, coiling under the marble floors, lingering in the hushed movements of the staff. It was as if the air itself had stiffened, holding its breath, waiting for something to break.
Dr. Liane Marwick walked through the east wing with a heaviness she rarely felt. Her clipboard rested against her chest, but she wasn't reading it; she was thinking. Calculating. Rethinking. The request Adrian had made—no, the order—echoed like a sharp, clinical strike every time she blinked.
"Create distance," he had told her."Cut emotional attachment.""Separate her from me."
And most chilling of all:
"I am unsalvageable. Nothing can heal me."
The psychologist had looked into damaged minds for decades—soldiers who had returned from war with souls burned black, CEOs who lost their humanity inch by inch to ambition, victims whose eyes still carried the last screams of their past—but Adrian Harrington was different.
He was the first patient she had ever met whose prognosis carried a word she hated: irreversible.
The best trauma surgeons in Europe had tried.Neurological specialists flown in from the States.South Korean behavioural teams renowned for rebuilding cognition.Experimental treatments in Switzerland.Emotional reconstruction therapies used for collapsed monarchies.Even the classified recovery regimen meant for intelligence personnel.
All of them failed.
All had come back with the same conclusion:His trauma was not treatable. Not negotiable. Not correctable.The damage had woven itself too deeply into the architecture of who he had become.
A man caged inside a self that refused to thaw.
Dr. Marwick paused in the hallway, hand tightening around her clipboard.
She understood now why Adrian insisted on this path.
He was not cruel.He was not spiteful.He was not dismissing Seraphina out of coldness or pride.
He was protecting her.
Protecting her from believing he could ever be whole.
To him, attachment was not love; attachment was a promise he could not fulfill. And that made it—by his logic—something dangerous.
But knowing his reasoning did nothing to lessen the burden she carried now.
How was she supposed to separate a desperate, traumatized young woman from the only emotional tether she had left?
Especially when that tether was married to her.
Especially when that tether was Adrian Harrington.
Especially when she had been clinging to him long before she even realized it herself.
Dr. Marwick continued walking, her shoes almost soundless against the carpet. Her steps took her toward the east wing's private rooms—Seraphina's gilded cage, as the staff whispered behind closed doors. The security detail stationed outside nodded at the doctor with reverence. They knew her authority here was second only to Adrian's.
One of the guards stepped forward.
"She's awake, ma'am."
"Is she stable?"
The guard hesitated. "She's… upset. More than usual."
Of course she was.
Because Seraphina, despite her selfishness, fragility, jealousy, and desperation—was very simple underneath it all:She clung to the people who made her feel chosen.
For years, she had clung to Adrian when he was spoiled, lazy, laughing, foolish, and unaware of how deeply he depended on her affection.
Now she was clinging again—but this time to a man she didn't even recognize.
A man carved from grief and steel.A man who could not return anything she asked for.A man she had wounded in ways she didn't even remember.A man who was determined not to ruin her life with his own.
Dr. Marwick inhaled deeply and pushed open the door.
Inside, Seraphina sat by the window in a silk robe, legs drawn up to her chest like a girl half her age. She didn't look up when the door opened, but the trembling of her fingers gave her away.
"Good morning, Seraphina," the doctor said, gently closing the door behind her.
Seraphina didn't answer. Her voice had disappeared sometime in the night, swallowed by panic and shame. She simply stared out at the sprawling gardens, eyes empty, posture too still.
"Did you sleep?" Dr. Marwick approached slowly.
A small shake of her head. Her hair, messy and unbrushed, slid over her cheek.
"Did you eat?"
Another shake.
The doctor lowered herself into the armchair across from her, folding her hands with practiced calm.
"Do you want to tell me why?"
It took almost a full minute before Seraphina spoke—soft, cracked, barely held together.
"He doesn't want to see me."
Dr. Marwick's heart tightened.
"Why do you think that?" the doctor asked gently, though she already knew.
"Because," Seraphina whispered, voice trembling, "I can… feel it. He's avoiding me. He's colder. Even the staff avoids mentioning him around me. The security outside my door was doubled this morning. They're treating me like I'm poison."
She pressed her forehead against her knees.
"I don't know what I did wrong this time…"
Dr. Marwick inhaled carefully.
Now, she thought.Now is the point where I must begin the separation.
But how?
How do you tear someone away from their anchor without ripping the person in half?
"Seraphina," she said softly, "your wellbeing does not depend on him."
Seraphina lifted her head, confusion rippling through her expression. "What?"
"You've become too fixated on the idea that he is the only person who can stabilize you."
"I'm married to him," Seraphina whispered. "Who else should I—"
"Marriage," the doctor interrupted with gentle firmness, "does not mean dependence. And it does not mean he is responsible for your emotional survival."
Seraphina's lips parted in disbelief. "Are you saying he doesn't… want me to depend on him?"
"I'm saying," Dr. Marwick replied, "that you need foundations outside of him."
Seraphina's eyes widened, wet and terrified.
"You want me to detach."
"Not detach," the doctor corrected, though the lie stung her own throat. "Just… rebalance."
Seraphina hugged her knees tighter.
"But why now?" she asked in a small, defeated voice. "Why is everything changing? Why is he acting like—like I'm something he needs to stay away from?"
Dr. Marwick closed her eyes briefly.
Because he is afraid of breaking you.Because he is afraid of destroying what is left of you.Because he knows he cannot be saved—and doesn't want you to drown with him.
But she could not say that.
She could not reveal the truth: that Adrian had ordered the distance, not for cruelty but as the only mercy he had left to give.
Instead, she spoke carefully.
"Your healing needs to come from within yourself, Seraphina. Not through him."
"Is he the one who said this?" her voice cracked, accusation and fear mixing like acid. "Tell me. Please. Tell me if he said it."
Dr. Marwick hesitated.
And that hesitation was answer enough.
Seraphina's breath hitched. Her fingers curled so tightly around her knees her knuckles turned white.
"He's abandoning me," she whispered.
"No," Dr. Marwick said firmly, leaning forward. "He is—not abandoning you. He is—"
But she couldn't finish.
Because even she didn't know whether this was protection or abandonment.Mercy or cruelty.The right thing or the necessary evil.
And that was the moment she realized the enormity of Adrian's request:
She had to separate Seraphina from her husbandwithout breaking what little remained of her.
She had to build new anchors, new emotional frameworks, new supports—fast, delicately, invisibly.
She had to become the barrier between them.
And she had to prepare Seraphina for a future in which the man she loved would eventually let go.
Even if Seraphina never wanted to.