Camilla pov..
I just needed to leave.
Not think. Not feel. Just move. My legs carried me up the stairs, away from the lights, away from the cameras, away from Patricia kneeling on the floor with her ring and her fourteen years of waiting.
What did you expect me to do? Stay in the crowd and watch him choose? Watch him say yes? Watch him become someone else's?
I ran.
The corridor was dark. The gala was below, muffled, distant, another world. Up here, there was only silence and shadows and the sound of my own breath tearing out of my chest.
He deserves better than me.
The thought came sharp, unbidden, a knife twisting in my ribs. I saw his face—Lucian's face—searching the crowd. Looking for me. And Henry's face—Henry's face—close to mine, his hand on my waist, his voice low in my ear.
You deserve someone who will love you completely, Lucian.
A dance. One dance. And my mind was already somewhere it shouldn't be.
