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I leaned back against the grotesquely expensive marble sculpture that stood like some over-glorified art piece in the foyer. Athena or Aphrodite or some goddess with a broken nose. Didn't really give a damn, honestly, except that it was cold as hell and digging into my spine.
Renna stood a few feet away from me, facing the double doors, her back straight like she'd been carved by the same damn sculptor who made this overpriced rock I was resting against. Hands clasped in front of her like some royal statue, unmoving, stiff as glass.
Why is she still standing like that? He's gone. Almost gone. Almost.
I followed her gaze and down the spiral cut of the staircase, I saw Ryan Lancaster, buttoning up the collar of his designer coat.
The staff was swarming him like bees to a queen. His security tailing behind him like he was some political dignitary. Leather-gloved, all-black suits, flanking him as he stepped out into the circular drive.
I could hear the engines of the black Range Rovers and the matching Bentleys purring in the distance, like some well-rehearsed parade about to leave the premises.
Ava was kissing him goodbye now, with her arms wrapped around his neck, like she was trying to soften what he wasn't even noticing. His mind was already in Prague or wherever the hell he was jetting off to.
I hated him.
Not in the immature, hot-headed kind of way. Not even because of what he said earlier at dinner.
I hated the way he looked at her. The expectation. The pressure. The authority. Like she was a doll in a box meant to smile and be still. Like he couldn't see how her eyes dimmed around him.
Bastard.
Renna hadn't turned around yet. Not even flinched. Not until the last car slipped past the colossal iron gates that sealed off the Lancaster palace from the world.
The second the last tail light disappeared past the drive...
She breathed.
Like someone had just untied her from a tightly knotted corset. Her shoulders dropped, and the porcelain stiffness cracked just a little.
Her entire body just... came alive. It was like watching a flower slowly uncurl after hours under a glass dome.
I straightened from the sculpture, arms folded. "You good now?"
