The Bride With A Stone Heart

Synopsis

Three days before I was to wed Michael Kingston, I found him entangled with my sister, Isabelle Grant, in his study. Their bodies pressed against his desk, the air thick with the scent of sweat and betrayal. It was the first time in the ten years since we'd met that I saw Michael so utterly undone. His hands trembled, the rims of his eyes flushed red. He pleaded that it was the wine, a moment of weak passion, and swore it would not alter my place as his future wife. I watched Isabelle peer from behind him, her dazed gaze sharp with silent triumph. That was all the proof I needed: this wasn't a drunken slip-up. This was a long-term rot they'd been hiding from me. My mother smoothed a curl from my temple, her voice soft. "Do you still wish to marry him?" I smiled, though tears traced my cheeks. "I will." The union of our families, a duke's heir to a chancellor's daughter, was a matter of lineage, legacy, and political fortune. My heart had turned to ash. Love was an irrelevant currency. It no longer mattered who I married.