CHAPTER SIXTEEN – SOUL CRUSHING MOMENT

Their first meeting - a shining vision in an impeccably-tailored Savile Row suit at one of her father's interminable charity galas. The butterflies he'd set aflutter in her stomach with one devastating flash of that trademark panty-melting smile. The whirlwind courtship that had followed, a giddy fever-dream of Europe's most exclusive clubs and restaurants, falling harder and faster than she'd ever imagined possible in the wake of his overwhelming confidence and easy charm. The almost alien sense of home, of finally finding her missing puzzle piece, when he'd slid that princess-cut diamond onto her trembling finger and murmured the words she'd been subconsciously aching to hear her whole life. But then...the tiny fissures. The occasional flashes of distance in his eyes that she'd convinced herself were just the vapors of commitment jitters settling in. His tightlipped refusal to discuss family beyond the broadest, most genial pleasantries. The disquieting sense that she never truly