CHAPTER 47

Agatha POV:

The city lights blurred into streaks of color as I sped through the empty streets, the engine of my car a roaring echo of the turmoil in my heart.

My phone lay on the passenger seat, its screen illuminated with Charles’s name, his unanswered calls a steady, persistent rhythm that mirrored the frantic beat of my own pulse.

I ignored them. All of them.

Charles, his charm, his promises, his suffocating possessiveness… it all felt overwhelming, a gilded cage I desperately needed to escape.

The encounter with Nathan at the gala, his raw vulnerability, the plea in his eyes, the echo of our shared past… it had shaken me, awakened a longing I’d tried so hard to bury.

And Charles’s reaction, the barely veiled jealousy, the possessive grip on my arm, the simmering anger in his gaze… it had confirmed my growing suspicions.

He was playing a dangerous game, a game of control and manipulation, and I was caught in the crosshairs.

But something else had shifted, a subtle but profound c