Isabella stared at the photograph for a long moment before she spoke.
"He never looked at me the way you're describing," she said quietly. "Not once, not even at the beginning. I used to think it was because we were still getting to know each other. That it would come, eventually, the way you're saying it came for you and Papa. But it never did. He was always... somewhere else. Even when he was standing right next to me."
"And then he called off the engagement," Camilla said.
"And then I watched him fall in love with someone else," Isabella said, her voice breaking. "Completely. Instantly. In a way that took him months with me and never actually arrived. I watched him look at her the way I used to imagine him looking at me in my fantasies. And it was like someone had taken everything I ever wanted and just... handed it to another woman."
Camilla reached over and took her daughter's hand.
"That's when Dante found you," she said. It wasn't a question.
