Georgia's POV
On the terrace, I let afternoon sunlight spill over me, warming bare arms as I grip the railing with knuckles bleached white as bone.
Rose scent drifts upward, mockingly sweet against my turmoil.
Manicured hedges stretch toward wrought iron gates, their pristine order mirroring the life I'm expected to lead.
A life dictated by duty, by a marriage that is contract more than love.
Josiah.
I close my eyes as guilt coils in my stomach like a serpent, scales cold against my insides.
Bitter on my tongue like unripe fruit.
I am his wife. His possession, perhaps, but still, his.
The gold band catches sunlight, flashing accusingly. A perfect circle with no beginning and no escape.
Hadn't I vowed to stand beside him? Hadn't I agreed to this life, to the role carved out before I'd understood its suffocating weight?
Our wedding day floods back. Cold church air that chilled my lungs, stiff smiles like masks poorly fitted, hollow congratulations echoing against stone walls.
My mother's approving nod as I sealed my fate with words that tasted of ashes.
And yet.
A different voice whispers through my thoughts, one I'd buried beneath wealth and obligation.
It rises now like a forgotten melody, soft but insistent. Growing louder with each beat of my traitorous heart.
But what about you?
I turn the letter over, thumb brushing the elegant scrawl of my name.
The paper is expensive, cream-colored and textured. Just like him.
Refined. Deliberate. Paper that demands to be touched, that makes fingertips ache with wanting.
It isn't just about Carlisle. It's what he represents.
His presence reminded me that I still exist beyond Josiah's shadow.
The way his eyes found mine across that crowded room, truly seeing me. Not as an accessory, not as duty fulfilled, but as a woman with desires that have been drowning for years.
I'm not foolish enough to believe I can rewrite my life in an instant.
My world doesn't allow for such dramatic gestures without catastrophic consequences.
But hasn't something fundamental shifted the moment my eyes met his?
The electricity between us awakened parts long dormant, parts I'd thought dead and buried.
Rationality wars with desire as I pace the terrace, each step dragging me through different arguments.
Smooth stone cool beneath bare feet.
You are a married woman.
It's only a meeting.
Carlisle Brocandale is dangerous in ways you cannot yet comprehend.
But for the first time in months, you felt alive.
The letter crinkles in my grip, cutting through my thoughts like a blade through silk.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the tumult of emotions that threatens to drown me.
My heart spells out a truth I'm not ready to face, each beat an accusation.
It would be so easy to pretend meeting him means nothing. That I'm not betraying anything by indulging in conversation, in the simple pleasure of being seen.
But I know that's a lie.
Deep down, I understand. This is not just a meeting.
It's the beginning of something that can never be undone.
Something that might leave me in pieces too small to ever reassemble, a mosaic shattered beyond repair.
The realization jolts through me like nearby lightning striking earth.
I turn sharply, striding back into the house with renewed determination.
The carpet absorbs my footsteps as though the house itself is conspiring to keep my secrets.
The letter trembles slightly, but my decision remains unmade.
Not yet.
But the fact that I haven't destroyed it, that I can't, tells me everything I refuse to say aloud.
His scent lingers on my fingertips, already marking me in ways invisible but indelible.
I'm not ready to let him go.
Not yet.
And perhaps... not ever.
-----
The letter sits on my vanity for two days. Untouched, but never unseen.
A paper bomb waiting to detonate my carefully constructed life.
I perform my daily rituals with the precision of a surgeon. Morning coffee on the terrace, replying to vapid invitations, attending charity meetings with women who measure their worth in canapés served and checks written.
I smile at the right beats, nod on cue, a marionette dancing on strings of expectation.
The perfect Mrs. Mason.
Inside, I'm nuclear. Radioactive with wanting.
Each morning I hover my fingers over that cream envelope, not touching it but feeling its gravity all the same.
His cologne still haunts the paper. Sandalwood and raw maleness that makes my pulse skip whenever I lean close enough to catch it.
I swear I won't answer. Can't. Shouldn't.
The Wednesday charity luncheon is a special kind of hell. My personal circle of Dante's Inferno, where souls are punished not with fire but with endless small talk about nothing at all.
Silver scrapes against china while Mrs. Harrington drones about saving whatever cause has caught her interest between spa appointments.
Bitter tea coats my tongue as I smile emptily.
The pearls around my neck might as well be stones, dragging me deeper into the abyss with each passing minute.
"Georgia, don't you agree?"
Mrs. Farnsworth's voice slices through my thoughts like a paper cut.
Heat blooms in my face, rising like mercury.
"Yes, of course."
I endorse God knows what. For all I know, I've just agreed to sacrifice a virgin at the next garden party.
Their voices fade to white noise as my mind returns to him. To the letter.
To things that wives like me shouldn't want but dream of in the darkness of their perfect bedrooms.
Alone at night, with only the accusatory ticking of the antique clock for company, my thoughts betray me.
The letter pulses in my consciousness like a heartbeat.
Behind closed eyes, I see him. Carlisle Brocandale, bathed in chandelier light at the gala, seeing through me in ways no one has bothered to in years.
His voice, like gravel wrapped in silk, discussing art and literature and ideas that made the dormant parts of me flicker back to life.
I trace the silk of my nightgown, remembering his gaze across the ballroom.
How he approached with the confidence of a man who'd never been denied, yet spoke with unexpected gentleness.
The brush of his fingers against mine as he handed me champagne. A touch that still burns through me days later, a brand on skin that won't heal.
I tell myself I'm pathetic. Imagining significance in cocktail party pleasantries.
But my body knows better. It hums with a truth my mind refuses to name.
I want him. With a hunger that frightens me.
The thought leaves me hollow and ravenous all at once, a vessel emptied only to be filled with something more potent.
Rain streaks the windows that night, warping the garden lights into liquid gold.
I press my forehead against the glass, fogging it with shaky breaths while Josiah's presence registers only as the distant sound of turning pages in his study.
We occupy the same house but different planets, orbiting around each other without ever touching.
In my dressing room, I search my reflection for answers.
Who am I now? Mrs. Josiah Mason, bound by vows and suburban propriety?
Or the woman I glimpsed in Carlisle's eyes. Someone worth knowing beyond her china pattern choices.
Someone whose desires still matter, whose soul hasn't been traded for security.
My fingertips find the jade earrings Josiah gave me for our anniversary. They gleam with quiet accusation.
I remove them, feeling nothing lighten but the lobes of my ears.
The weight inside remains.
Maybe meeting him would be a mistake.
Maybe it would save me.
What harm could come from just one meeting?
I almost laugh at my own naivety, at how easily we lie to ourselves when we've already decided.
Sleep abandons me that night.
Moonlight carves harsh white lines across my bedroom floor like prison bars of silver.
I slip from bed, my bare feet silent as I return to the vanity where the letter waits.
Its paper has softened with time, as if it too awaits my choice.
I touch it.
And it feels like surrender.
It feels like salvation.