"Are you alright? I'm sorry—I got carried away." His eyes lingered on the dying flames. "We collected those photographs over ten years, Elena. Weren't we supposed to look through them together at the wedding? Why would you destroy them?"
"If there were insects in the album, you could have waited for me to return. Or at least sent word. I would have handled it." He stepped closer, and I could smell the cloying sweetness of his signature cologne—Black Opium, expensive and suffocating.
I didn't bother meeting his gaze. The man standing before me bore no resemblance to the boy who had once sworn to protect me, who had promised me a place in his world. That boy had been buried long ago beneath ambition and another woman's perfume.
"You're so occupied with Family business," I said flatly. "I didn't want to trouble you with such trivial matters."
He stood beside me, staring mournfully at the ashes as if they held the remnants of something sacred. The irony was bitter enough to taste—he was the one who had burned our decade to the ground for another woman, yet here he stood, performing grief like a man who still cared.