Letting Go of Love, Choosing Myself

legacies, fortifying alliances, and ensuring prosperity. To them, a marriage was merely a transaction, a business agreement dressed in the illusion of romance. It was the life

erling was the day she relinqu

n their wedding night, when they stood in the grand, empty silence of their marital chamber, she had imagined that this man, so distant and calculated, would one day warm to her, would see her

ldness nev

never to

nths of living under the same roof, that Cassian preferred to disappear into his study, his business meetings, his silent, endless hours. She became accustomed to the loneliness that settled over

hours he spent away from their home, his absence more frequent than his presence. He never asked how she was, never inquired about her

illed in her, hoping that perhaps one day, he would come to appreciate her, that he wou

nk. Cassian was there, as always, but this time, there was a woman with him. A woman who clung to him in a way that Valeria had never experienced. The woman's laughter filled the air, high-pitched and

s wrong. But this-this was the confirmation she never w

her throat. She wasn't sure if it was the shock that paralyzed her or the hollow realization that this had been the inevitable outcome of a marr

ister her presence. He was too wrapped up in his own world, his own s

and hurt. That night, she cried for the first time in years. For the life she had lost. For the woman she had tried to beco

one. She had been alone for so long, even when she had shared a bed with him. Cassian had nev

th a focus that kept her mind from wandering. But it was always there, lurking beneath the surface-the hurt, the betrayal, the anger

llowed herself to answer that q

ew she cou

eing used. Done with the suffocating expectat

anymore. She had endured so much, and yet, the only person who had ever truly betrayed her was hersel

ssentials-and left. The world she once knew faded into the