Chapter 129 The Leash She Doesn't Hold

• The soft click of heels echoes through the dining room, each step a countdown I refuse to acknowledge. My body, however, betrays me. It reacts before my mind can suppress it—a Pavlovian response. I should have broken it by now. My breath steadies, measured, but tension coils in my jaw. She has me on an invisible leash, and the worst part is, she doesn’t even have to pull. All it takes is her presence. Then she steps through the doors, poised, untouchable, and something in my chest tightens, an unspoken command I have no choice but to obey.
• My beautiful little Bea.
• She’s breathtaking in the dress I chose, baby blue silk floating around her like liquid moonlight. The color makes her look impossibly delicate, highlighting the shadows beneath her cheekbones, the perfect arch of her throat where my necklace rests. She’s lost weight—enough that the dress hangs slightly loose where it should cling—but somehow that only enhances that deceptive mask of innocence that makes her look more like the ethereal creature I sometimes forget she is.