Chapter 207: Don’t Look At Me

LOUISE’S POV

Adrien looked at me.

I felt suddenly exposed, as though I had removed a piece of clothing without realizing it.

"Forget I said that," I snapped.

He shook his head. "I won’t."

"Adrien."

"I won’t tell anyone."

I stared at him. He seemed to realize that I had misunderstood. "I mean, I won’t repeat it. You don’t have to worry."

I looked down at my hands.

There was a small mark on my thumb where I had pressed my nail too hard into the skin. I rubbed it with my other hand until the pale crescent disappeared.

"Why are you being nice to me?" I asked.

The question came out so quietly that I almost hoped he hadn’t heard it. But he had.

He looked down at the dirt beside his shoe, thinking. "I don’t know."

"That’s a terrible answer."

"I know."

"Then try again."

He took a slow breath. "Because I don’t think you’re always like this."

I went still.

He continued before I could interrupt him.

"I think you get angry when you’re upset, and you say things because you know they will hurt. Sometimes I think you say them before you even decide whether you mean them."

My throat tightened.

He looked at me carefully. "But I don’t think that’s everything about you."

I wanted to hate him for saying it.

I wanted to tell him he knew nothing about me, that he was foolish to confuse a moment of quiet with kindness. I wanted to remind him that I had spent years making sure he understood exactly where he stood in the family.

Instead, I sat very still.

He had not forgiven me for anything. I had not apologized for anything. We were not friends, not really. We were two children in a glass house, temporarily free from the people who had taught us to hurt each other.

Yet he had looked at me and imagined something beyond the person I had become.

I did not know what to do with that.

For a few short minutes, we sat there together as the stars began to appear above the glass roof. He didn’t ask me to prove myself.

He didn’t demand that I pick a side. He didn’t ask me to be useful to him, or clever, or sharp. He had simply asked me what I wanted, because he genuinely cared to know.

And I, who had been trained to recognize every hidden motive, could not find one in him.

That frightened me more than I wanted to admit.

Eventually, the bell rang again from the main building. This time, I heard footsteps approaching along the path outside.

Adrien straightened.

I felt the old tension return to his shoulders as he looked toward the door.

The moment was ending.

I knew it before either of us spoke.

"Someone is coming," he said.

"I can hear them."

"You should probably go first."

I looked at him. "Why?"

He glanced down at his clothes.

"I look like I’ve been digging in the garden."

"You have been digging in the garden."

"Exactly."

I almost smiled again. Then I remembered where we were.

If a servant found us sitting together in the glass house, someone would ask why. If Alice heard about it, she would want to know what we had discussed.

If she suspected that I had spoken to Adrien without using the familiar little weapons she had placed in my hands, she would find a way to remind me why those weapons were necessary.

I stood and smoothed my skirt. Adrien rose from the crate, carrying the little stick in one hand.

For a second, we looked at each other without speaking.

I wanted to say something. I did not know what. Thank you, perhaps. For asking. For listening.

For allowing me to sit beside you without having to become someone else.

The words seemed ridiculous before they reached my tongue.

So I said, "Your fern looks terrible."

Adrien glanced at the pot. "It isn’t doing very well."

"Perhaps you should find something else to occupy your time."

"Perhaps."

He looked back at me, and that small smile appeared again. "But I think I’ll give it another chance."

I turned toward the door before he could see my expression. When I reached the handle, I paused.

"Adrien?"

"Yes?"

I did not look back. "Your dream is still boring."

He was quiet for a moment. Then I heard him laugh. "I know, Louise."

I pulled the door open and stepped outside.

The evening air felt cooler against my skin. The garden lights had come on, illuminating the gravel paths and the carefully trimmed hedges. Somewhere in the distance, a fountain splashed steadily into its basin.

I walked toward the main building without looking behind me.

I did not know that it would be one of the last peaceful afternoons we would share.

I did not know how quickly the house would change, how the poison would enter our lives, how suspicion would spread through the corridors until every closed door became a threat and every familiar face became a possible enemy.

I did not know that Adrien would eventually leave in the middle of the night, carrying a small bag and whatever hope he had managed to preserve.

I did not know that the boy who wanted a quiet house near the water would one day be bound to Orion Vassilis, wearing a ring that meant something very different from the freedom he had imagined.

I did not know that I would become the kind of person who could destroy his privacy with a leaked video and tell myself I had done it because I had no other choice.

At sixteen, I thought the future was a place we could enter once we were old enough.

I did not understand that some futures were being built around us long before we knew how to escape them.

The memory fades slowly, dissolving back into the cold, sterile reality of this hotel room.

I blink my eyes, focusing on the dark gap between the velvet curtains. The sun outside is completely gone now. The city streets far below are lit by artificial streetlamps and glowing neon signs, casting a dull, orange hue against the windowpane.

I sit alone on the white bed, my hands still flat against my knees.

For a moment, I cannot tell whether the air conditioner has grown louder or whether the silence has simply become more noticeable.