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Eilish’s laugh gets on my nerves. “Stop lying to yourself.”

“I’m not.”

“You are if you expect me to believe that.”

I turn away from the window and cross to the kitchen island where there’s a stack of property files that my solicitor sent over this afternoon. The top file carries no Harrington markings. My father gets off on family crests, letterheads, and fountain pen ink signatures.

I prefer subtlety when I’m expanding my reach. There’s a certain satisfaction in buying power while everyone else is too busy looking in the opposite direction.

“Whatever it was––” I tap the files “––is over.”

“That right there makes you sound pathetic, Fionn,” she says with a half laugh. “You know Sera doesn’t fold for just anyone…and you knew what you were doing.”

“I’d tread carefully with those accusations,” I remind her. “You aren’t my fiancée anymore.”

“You fell for her,” Eilish continues, cutting even deeper. “And even when you lied and said it meant nothing, you blocked your father when he humiliated her.”

My fingers tighten around the edge of the folder, leaving a deep crease in it.

What haunts me is the way she whispered necklace. A word meant for the chase and everything she trusted me to do until it became the only way she could make me stop hurting her.

I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway.

“You’re talking like you know me, Eilish.”

Her sigh comes heavier now. “I’ve seen enough to know you’d never step between that man and just anyone.”

I stroll back to the window, my gaze settling on the city.

“I’m building my own position. I won’t let my father bribe me with an inheritance for my obedience. The wedding ties me to his plans, so it ends.”

“And where does Sera fit into yours?”

“She doesn’t.” I keep my eyes on the dark water. “When you see her, tell her to stay away from me.”

“Because that worked so well last time?”

“Because my father knows.”

Alasdair Harrington doesn’t need a confession. He only needs to know what a man will protect before he uses it against him.

“Take the relief of your freedom and leave the rest alone.”

“I am relieved. I’m also worried about her.”

“She’s a Tallon. She’ll move on.”

“Is that what you want, Fionn? For the woman you care about to find someone else?”

Another man beside her would give my father no reason to keep watching. The logic is clean. My fist draws back, and I stop the punch an inch from the glass.

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Takes for what?”

“For my father to believe I used her.”

Eilish goes quiet, and I let the silence settle because there’s no point getting into it.