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Late night, and the Palazzo Davinos glitters on the banks of the Vrosh, its beauty a testament to the power of both the liege and vassal Houses ensconced within. At this hour, few whose business required them to be on the streets would be likely to linger and cast an admiring eye on the opulent complex; even if they did, none would pay any mind to the figure slipping down its side and through a servants’ entrance, for no-one in a cloak so shabby could be considered worth paying attention to.
Which of course is precisely why the lady Aranessa had donned it.
Closing the door behind her, she leans her aching head against the wood, and the tears that have burned her throat all the long, long walk back to the safety of these walls finally escape in a shuddering, agonised sob.
Stupid, foolish naivete. What did you think would happen?
~
She’d thought herself clever, when she’d left the Palazzo a few hours previously.
Retiring early for the night pleading a headache had been easy enough. Raimond could not and would never consider refusing his lady hospitality, but the suffocating weight of everything implied and unsaid by her continued presence at her vassal’s house had only increased with every refusal to acknowledge her grandfather’s missives. Thus, even the flimsiest of excuses to leave the strained atmosphere of the dining table was accepted without question.
After her maids had left her ostensibly bedded down for the night, it had not taken long to slip on the simple dress and cloak quietly borrowed earlier from the servants’ laundry; her lack of experience in dressing herself was thankfully a non-issue since the dress simply went on over her shift and fastened at the waist. It had taken a few moments to become accustomed to the lack of layering, to how low the neckline sat on her chest and how freeing it was to move without stays. That was purely a practical decision, of course, she couldn’t lace them up by herself… and if it meant easier access later, well, that would be a happy coincidence.
Once attired, she’d stepped in front of the mirror and, golden light twinkling at the tip of her finger like a gilded brush, repainted the shape of her face; brow broadened and raised, cheekbones lowered and narrowed, mouth a little wider, skin tone a good deal lighter, lines beginning to crease her eyes smoothed away. The woman left standing before her - Theresa was the name she’d chosen - might have been said to resemble the Lady Royce, but was different enough to pass without comment, especially once her face was safely shadowed by the hood of her cloak.
Outside the balcony doors, a second whispered incantation had set the soles of her boots aglow, and the guards all diligently watching from the walls were looking outwards for intruders, not inwards for an escapee floating down into the streets and scurrying away down to Caravan Hill.
~
She might have remained at the servants’ entrance all night, lost in self-recrimination, if the sound of approaching footsteps did not startle her into remembrance that she is out of bed, out of place, out of her fool mind to think she could do anything that would make a difference.
Her feet carry her through corridors and up stairs as she wipes at her face, pushing down the tide of emotions threatening to drown her in favour of cold strategy, there is an unoccupied suite of rooms on the floor below hers –
“Hey –”
The balconies are within view of one another, a Misty Step should be enough to cross the distance and then –
“Hey, you! Girl! Where do you think you are going?”
~
Dol-Makjar’s market district is always busy; the merchants whose caravans give the hill its name arrive and depart at all hours, and the many taverns and inns crammed into the streets alongside shopfronts are always ready to welcome them. Small wonder, then, that a falcon and his followers would choose to nest above one such tavern, their flights impossible to track amidst the swarming crowds.
Aranessa wasn’t supposed to know where it was, of course. That kind of information was far too dangerous to write down, let alone be put in the dead drop she left her scraps of intelligence in; she’d spent weeks watching and waiting to ambush the runner sent to retrieve her messages, and only in playing the grief-stricken wife on the verge of defecting had she wrung the name of Thjazi’s main hideout from the boy.
She wasn’t proud of it by any means, but tonight, winding through the crowds of the Trader’s Rest towards the shadowed staircase in the back corner, she had not been able to find it in herself to care about anything but laying eyes on her husband again.
Someone had stopped her at the foot of the stairs, of course, asking for a password she didn’t know or have the patience to guess.
“I’ve a message for Mr Fang,” she’d said stubbornly, the charm of the fae honeying her words with barely any effort, “I was told to give it directly into his hands. Let me pass.”
She hadn’t stopped to see the woman’s eyes unfocus and her body move obediently aside, instead climbing the stairs two at a time with her heart in her mouth, and when she pushed open the door at the top her breath had escaped her entirely at the sight of Thjazi turning to face her for the first time in a year.
~
She doesn’t respond when the words lash out simply because it does not occur to her that she is their target; though the voice is as familiar as her own, it has never once addressed her in such a tone, and so it is not until her elbow is seized and she is pulled sharply to a halt that she turns to look at Julien.
“Who are you?”
She blinks up at him, thrown utterly by the hard line of his brow, the set of his jaw, his grip on her arm and the iron in his voice; she is halfway to saying his name when he steps closer into her space than she can ever remember him being in their lives and growls,
“I asked you a question, girl.”
Her face. He doesn’t know it’s her.
~
“Who are you?”
Thjazi’s voice had almost undone her on the spot; he looked older, wearier, but that low rasp was the same delicious notes that had poured into her ears at a masquerade three years ago today, Nessa, you think I wouldn't know those eyes anywhere?
“Who said you could come up here?” another, much younger voice demanded, and tearing her gaze from her husband she’d realised for the first time she’d walked into a room full of revolutionaries, gathered around a paper-strewn table with Thjazi. Several of them were already reaching for weapons as the man – boy, he couldn’t have been more than 14 – who’d spoken started to move towards her.
“My lady Royce sent me,” she’d blurted, remembering just in time to pitch her voice higher and make her words breathy and girlish to match her face. “I'm her maid – Theresa. She thinks the dead drop is being watched. She wanted me to give you this into your own hands, to be sure it got to you safely.”
There’d been utter silence as she pulled out the letter, pitifully small and thin like the scraps of information it contained; when Thjazi walked around the table and came to stand in front of her, it had taken all of her strength not to throw herself into his arms.
Thjazi. Oh, my love, my husband, I missed you –
“She always was too smart for her own good,” he’d murmured, taking the letter.
And then, before she could speak or take his hand or kiss the smile back onto his face, he’d turned away from her, never even looking her in the eyes, tossing her message onto the table with everything else like he already knew it wasn’t truly worth the time it would take to read.
“Tell your mistress to look for the new drop where we used to feed the birds. She’ll know where I mean.”
She’d actually taken a step back at that, her breath coming too fast as he waved a hand vaguely in her direction, not even turning around.
“Don’t come here again. It isn’t safe.”
~
“Good evening, Sir Davinos,” she stumbles out, trying not to wince at how artificial the girlish tone sounds in her mouth. “I’m Theresa.”
“Theresa. And who gave you permission to come into my palazzo at this hour… Theresa?”
Julien’s eyes drag over her slowly as he speaks, head to toe and back again, and it’s only when the furrow in his brow lessens as his gaze lingers on the low neckline of her chest that she realises what he’s thinking.
“Sir Mardonus,” she says, grasping at a half memory of a maid’s gossip from weeks ago; a moment passes, and then Julien rolls his eyes and relief seeps into her.
“Of course. I do not know why I am surprised. Why go out to dine when the food can bring itself to you.”
He lets go of her arm, but doesn’t step back.
It should be uncomfortable, to have him this close, to be able to see each individual lovely dark eyelash as he looks at her from under them with a hunger that sets her pulse racing in her ears. The hand that brushes a loose strand of hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ear is ungloved, and maybe if she hadn’t slept the past year in an empty bed the lingering drag of his bare fingers against her cheek wouldn’t burn like this…
“Has anyone ever told you what lovely eyes you have, Theresa?”
~
“That’s it?!”
The cry had ripped from her before she could stop it, and she’d almost slapped a hand over her mouth as though that would take the foolish tantrum back.
“I mean – beg pardon, sir, but – my lady was hoping you m-might have something else to say to her.”
Thjazi’s head turned.
Yes. Come back. Look at me.
“Something else?”
“Something… more personal?”
He’d sighed, and her hands had bunched in her skirts as he fully moved back to stand in front of her, his lovely dark eyes at long last finding her undisguised ones.
“Tell Nessa,” he paused, jaw working, all the air long since fled from her chest as she waited for recognition to crease the corners of his eyes and mouth, “tell her I don’t blame her.”
She’d had to swallow hard to push the tears down, I don’t either, I understand, I always did, I wanted –
“And tell her she shouldn’t waste the rest of her life waiting for me.”
The words had hit her square in the stomach at the same moment the sorrow in his eyes pierced her heart clean through.
waste the rest of her life waiting
Through the ringing in her ears, she saw him turn away again, distantly heard him say, “Azune, see her out,” in the same tone she’d use to dismiss a pageboy; the teen who had spoken earlier had taken her arm with surprising gentleness and turned her away towards the door.
A last glance over her shoulder showed Thjazi already leaning back over the table, pointing at something she could not see.
~
Julien’s tongue darts out of his mouth, wets his lower lip, and as heat begins to pool in Aranessa’s stomach she wonders how she has not noticed before how full and plump his lips are.
“You’re a flatterer, Sir Davinos,” she hears herself breathe, and gods help her, he smirks, those long fingers curling under her chin to tilt it up just enough that she can feel his breath against her mouth.
Enough. He is her vassal. This has to stop.
She steps back – and he follows, bare hand splaying over her collarbone, his skin against hers igniting a fire in every millimetre where they meet, he would never touch her like this if she was wearing her own face…
“Please, Theresa, call me Julien,” and lightning arcs down her spine, even with the false name on his lips his voice is low and rough and cleaves straight through her to her core, his eyes are fixed on hers and the lust in his gaze is a drug she hadn’t even known she was craving.
His thumb, stroking circles at the base of her throat, drags tortuously slowly up her neck, over her chin, comes to rest on her bottom lip, and it seems the most natural thing in the world to let it slip into her mouth, to lave at the pad with her tongue and let her teeth dig just a little into his skin so that he groans –
Her back hits the wall, her breath leaving her lungs in a strangled gasp as his knee pushes between her thighs and his lithe body presses flush against hers, even through the leathers of his uniform she can feel enough of the hard length in his trousers to make her cunt ache, she’s been so empty for so long, why shouldn’t she let him fill her up like she wants, like she needs –
~
She didn’t remember how she got downstairs, or out of the tavern. She’d just found herself on the street, the stream of people brushing past her seeming neither to notice nor care why she was standing alone and unmoving in the middle of the pavement.
And why would they? They had better things to do; places to go, business to conduct, loved ones to return home to...
Something wet had landed on her face, and she’d instinctively ducked, moved down into a side alley and wiped it away, looked apprehensively at her hand to see if she needed to cast Prestidigitation or if it had just started to rain.
It wasn’t until the golden sparks that had begun to dance over her skin with the gentle tingle of dissipating magic blurred into barely visible spots that she’d realised she was crying.
waste the rest of your life waiting
A waste. That was all her marriage was, now. She would have given him all the years of her life, and he’d thrown them back in her face along with her heart.
waste the rest of your life waiting
Because it wasn’t enough. It didn't matter that she’d loved him, more than she’d ever thought possible, that he’d loved her and that she'd been so sure he meant it when he looked into eyes and said “til death us do part”.
He hadn’t loved her enough to stay.
And she hadn’t loved him enough to leave.
~
“How much?”
Julien’s breath is hot in her ear, the hand not bracing him against the wall running down over her waist and hips to grip her backside and start dragging her back and forth along his thigh; even that small amount of friction makes her whine and cling to his shoulders, the desire thrumming beneath her skin now so intense she can hardly breathe, let alone remember why she shouldn’t let him lift her skirts and have her against the wall like the whore he thinks she is –
“Theresa.” His fingers grasp her chin, bring her face up to his, less than half an inch between their open mouths as he breathes raggedly, “How much to forget Mardonus and get those pretty legs of yours around me instead?”
For a moment, common sense breaks free of the chokehold of lust, and her hands slide down from his shoulders onto his chest, ready to push him away and salvage whatever shreds of propriety could be said to still exist between them.
It’s not as if she has any idea how much to charge for a fuck, in Dol-Makjar or anywhere else; the closest she’s ever come to that kind of information is Thjazi’s old joke that he’d have to rob every estate in Mirzash to afford a night in her bed.
Anger surges in her, sudden and hot enough to rival the desire still pulsing between her legs. Her bed has been empty for a year, the ring on her finger as good as a shackle with Thjazi’s name on it.
Don’t waste your life waiting for me. As if she has a choice. The lady Royce remains a married woman, and so it is irrelevant that Aranessa is wound tighter than a lute string with unmet need.
Bastard. You knew what you were abandoning me to and you left anyway.
Julien had been there, that terrible night she had come home to an empty bedchamber and a letter on her pillow. He’d stayed by her side as she wept, drawn a blanket over her when she was too wrung out to produce any more tears, stood watch while she slept and escorted her to breakfast the next morning as quiet and reliable as a second shadow.
He stayed.
And now here he is, her faithful knight, offering her just what she needs once again. So what if she’s had to wear another woman’s face to get it from him? She didn’t disguise her body; every inch of flesh his eyes and hands have so lasciviously dragged over is hers, and no one else will ever want her this openly.
Besides, he is her vassal. He is sworn to serve her.
“For you, Sir Julien, the usual will be more than enough,” she breathes in what she hopes is coy assent, fresh arousal spiking through her veins when his eyes flutter closed and he groans like he’s already inside her.
~
In the mirrored darkness of a window, she watched herself wipe her eyes roughly and recast her disguise, wondering all the while why she made the effort.
Whether Theresa or Lady Royce, no one who looked at Aranessa ever saw her.
~
The room Julien pushes her into is little more than a cupboard, shelves and piles of boxes leaving little space for manoeuvring; but there is a gap of bare wall just the right size for him to pin her against it, her hands scrabbling at the racks for something to cling onto as his teeth sink into her neck, the flick of his tongue against her captured flesh making her knees buckle and a sharp moan tear itself from her throat.
Thank the gods the disguise doesn't require concentration.
He’s already grinding against her hip, shamelessly panting curses into her ear, and as his fingers dig into her ass she’s suddenly filled with the urge to see him properly.
She sinks to her knees, making swift work of the buckles on his trousers, and isn’t quite able to stifle a gasp as she pulls his cock free of the leather. Even in the dim light seeping through the gap under the door, he’s gorgeous, a little shorter than she was expecting but thick in a way that makes her mouth water, skin soft against her fingers as she lowers her head and licks up the liquid beading at the tip.
“Oh, fuck –”
A hand tangles in her hair, seemingly just for something to hold onto; he doesn’t pull her head forward as she was half-expecting, and a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Her Julien. Always so polite, even when getting his cock sucked.
How much would it take to undo him? To make him lose all control and fuck her mouth with no restraint?
Wrapping her hand around the base of his shaft, she leans in and kisses and then licks the tip again, stroking him slowly and humming as the taste of him spreads over her tongue.
“Fuck, yes –”
His voice is already broken and raw, and satisfaction glows hot in her chest, pushing her to take the head into her mouth properly, her tongue probing the underside in rhythm with her hand.
“Ah – ah – more –”
No.
She lowers her head to take more of him in, but then holds stock still, the only thing moving over his cock her panting breaths and the fingers gripping him firmly at the base.
“Wh– what are you – don't stop –”
“Stop, my lord?” she asks innocently, lifting her head just enough that her lips brush the head of his cock with every word, peering up at him through her lashes as she continues to move her hand at a glacial pace. “Whyever would I do that?”
He gapes at her, still panting needily, hips jolting in futile half-thrusts against the vice of her fingers, and she holds his gaze coolly.
“I – you –”
“I'm not a mind reader, Sir Julien,” she croons, pushing a large globule of spit over her lips and feigning unawareness of it dripping onto his cock and starting to trickle down his shaft. “If there's something you'd like from me I'll need you to ask.”
For several long moments the only noise in the small space is the slow drag of her hand on his cock, and she does not take her eyes off him, waiting for him to break, for the grip in her hair to tighten and pull her forwards –
“Please,” he whines, cock twitching hard in her grasp as the word falls from his lips, “please, I – I need – oh fuck, oh gods, please –”
It’s as arousing as it is unexpected, and she can’t get his cock in her mouth fast enough, needing to hear him whine like that again, needing to see and feel and taste him come apart for her, because of her.
She presses her tongue to the underside of his shaft, pumping the base hard and fast as she rubs the head against the roof of her mouth, each gasp and moan that she pulls from his throat going straight to her cunt as she licks and sucks him relentlessly, not giving him a moment’s respite.
“Fuck, oh fuck – yes – ah, ah, ah, yes – yes, oh fuck –”
She removes her hand to push her head down further, slackening her jaw and moaning to make him shudder. She stops before the head hits the back of her throat, pushing her tongue past her lips and swallowing, her reward another choked whine and the scrape of his nails over her scalp as he finally starts to fuck her mouth, cock dragging back and forth over her tongue as he pants raggedly above her, “F– fuck, fuck, oh fuck, yes – yes, like that, that's so fucking – fuck, yes – yes, please – don’t stop, please don't stop – fuck, oh fuck oh fuck – ah, ah, fuck – fuck, oh fuck, I'm, I'm gonna –”
She digs her nails into his thighs, pushes forwards until her nose hits the soft thatch of dark curls, hollows her cheeks, and a single broken cry rings sweet in her ears as his cock pulses on her tongue and his spend gushes hot down her throat. She keeps him in her mouth until he’s soft, letting his hips rock to a halt and his grip on her hair loosen before pulling back and placing a final kiss against the head; when she lifts away, a thin strand of saliva stretches between the tip and her swollen lips as she looks up at Julien, satisfaction warming her chest at how utterly wrecked his face is.
“Fucking hells –”
She sits back on her haunches, flutters her lashes at him with a smile she hopes is as coquettish as she feels.
“Will that do, my lord?”
His eyes flash, and suddenly she’s on her feet, the hand not pinning her to the wall rucking her skirts up with practised speed.
“I believe I told you to call me Julien.”
His fingers are inside her before she can respond, and it’s her turn to choke in disbelief and cling to his hair for support; she’s more than wet enough to take him in knuckle deep, and it isn’t until he crooks them against the spot that makes her jolt in his arms that she finds the wherewithal to gasp out, “Wh– what are you d–”
“Getting my money’s worth,” he purrs, his free hand dipping down the front of her dress to pinch and roll her nipple as he sucks another mark into her collarbone. “Or did you think I didn’t mean it when I said I want those legs around me?”
Are all men like this with their paid women?
She has a sinking feeling it’s just him, especially when he pulls his hand away and lifts his slick-soaked fingers to his mouth, moaning more obscenely at the taste of her than anything she’d done with her tongue had produced.
"My turn," he growls, dropping to his knees and lifting a leg over his shoulder; the hot press of his tongue against her cunt comes too fast for her to do anything but wail and grab onto his hair and the shelves for dear life.
“Julien –”
He gives as good as he got, fingers sliding back inside her as his tongue finds her clit, the vibrations of his groans making her all but double over, it’s so much after so many months alone, his fingers are bigger than hers and he keeps crooking them right where it makes her want to scream, oh fuck, oh fuck she’s already so close, he’s been on his knees for less than a minute and she’s going to come over his face like a –
“Julien!!”
It hits her hard, tears smarting in her eyes as everything in her body from the waist down convulses and pleasure burns white-hot through her veins, the release of months of tension reducing her to a quivering mess held upright only by the hand splayed on her stomach, its owner still licking up every drop of her slick his tongue can reach.
It isn’t until his fingers flex and start to move again as he returns to sucking on her clit that she realises he isn’t going to stop.
She tries to say his name again, but all that comes out is a keening whimper, and his mouth curves in a smile against her thigh, a low chuckle sending shockwaves through her still-pulsing cunt and making her squirm helplessly in his grip, still sensitive from how indecently hard and fast he’d made her come. His pace is slower this time, but no less intense, and it's almost worse that now she isn't rocketing towards an orgasm she's aware of every detail of what he's doing to her.
His tongue flicks and circles her clit at just the right pressure to make her writhe; his fingers deftly find the perfect spot and work it until she's on the verge of pushing him away, then switch to slow, long dragging strokes of the rest of her cunt in rhythm with his tongue; the relentless scrape of his stubble against the inside of her thighs sends tingles up her spine and down to her toes; and every time he moans her knees buckle so intensely she’d surely fall if she wasn’t trapped in place between the wall and the relentless working of his mouth.
Her release builds so gradually that it’s almost a surprise when it breaks through her in hot waves. She moans long and low, riding it out on his tongue until he gently pulls back and stands, still holding her firmly in place, both the lust in his eyes and the sight of his glistening mouth and chin making her stomach lurch.
Before she can do something stupid like beg him to fuck her using her own voice, she feels herself moving, being turned around to face the wall, fabric rustling and air suddenly cool on her legs as Julien grabs her hips and pulls her bare ass flush against the hard line of his cock.
Oh gods. Oh fuck. Please.
She can feel precome smearing over her skin where he's grinding against her, his breaths already coming short and sharp against the back of her neck, and then his lips brush her ear and her knees almost give out as he growls, "Open your legs."
She bites back a whine, not trusting herself to speak, and leans against the wall on her forearms and shakily spreads herself for him; another filthy moan pours into her ear, and the head of his cock drags over her folds and pushes into her oh fuck –
Julien chokes behind her, some strangled word she can’t even begin to discern when her entire world has shrunk to the sensation of his cock filling her up so completely she feels almost halfway to coming from it.
How does he feel bigger in her cunt than he did in her mouth?
His grip on her hips tightens, and he starts to move, shallow experimental strokes that rapidly lengthen into deep thrusts; she hangs her head between her arms and takes it, his panting groans and the wet slap of skin on skin filling the air around them and driving her wild.
She’s going to come again, she can feel it coiling hot in her stomach and thighs, every grind of his cock in her swollen overstimulated cunt is right on the knife edge of too painful but it’s so delicious she wouldn’t make him stop for anything. Gathering what little strength she has, she arches her hips and pushes back onto him, hissing in satisfaction when his pace stutters and he gasps like he's been punched; she does it again, and again, sobbing in ecstasy when he responds in kind, the added friction and extra depth exactly what she needs to take her over the edge hard and fast.
When she comes apart, there's no air left in her lungs to give sound to the cry that falls from her, pleasure wracking her body for what feels like a small eternity, nearly so overwhelming she thinks could die of it; the moment awareness begins to return, thought becomes certainty, because Julien's still fucking her, his hands clutching her tight and his mouth back on her neck, he's rutting in her like he's the one who hasn't been bedded in a year, he's so good, so good to her, her Julien, her vassal, hers –
His hips jolt and slam into her, and the feel of him spilling inside her is more than enough to make her soak his cock again, her pulse so loud in her ears it makes his fevered groan sound like he's whimpering her name, and with her orgasm still burning hot through her it's easy to briefly lose herself in the fantasy of ordering him to her bed, having him between her legs like this whenever she wants, his pretty broken voice pleading "Aranessa," as she takes her due from her vassal...
Reality comes crashing down around her the moment she opens her eyes; the sparks dancing in her vision when she came again were magic, not pleasure, and she freezes in horror at the sight of her wedding ring gleaming bold and undisguised on her left hand.
Shit. Fuck. No.
Julien's still inside her, his forehead resting between her shoulder blades, and after the longest few seconds of her life she realises with a surge of relief his heaving, ragged breaths are no different to how he sounded after – the first time.
He hasn't noticed.
It's probably the fastest she's cast in her life, the whispered incantation barely audible to her own ears as she draws Theresa's face over hers and banishes her ring from view; by the time Julien pulls away from her, she has herself enough in hand to not whine at the loss and turn to face him with another flirtatious smile.
"You do know how to treat a girl, Sir Julien."
He just hums, already rebuckling his trousers, and she shakes herself internally.
What did you expect? That he'd hold you and whisper sweet nothings? He thinks you're a whore, not his – not special.
The chink of coins as he reaches into a small pouch on his belt only reinforces the thought, though she maintains her smile as he places several gold in her hand.
"Thank y–"
Before she can finish, Julien is tucking a finger under her chin, tilting her face up and running his thumb over her bottom lip again with a sigh.
"Would that I had nothing better to do tonight than take you to my rooms and enjoy more of your exquisite company," he murmurs, eyes lingering on hers. "Alas, duty calls. Perhaps another night I could be the one to pay you a visit?"
Gods, if only.
"Perhaps," she manages, making for the door before she blushes hard enough for it to be visible through the illusion.
"Where do you work?"
Fuck.
She stares frantically at the door, as though a brothel name would be helpfully inscribed into the wood.
"Theresa?" His voice is right behind her, and desperation finally provides a flash of inspiration.
"I'm sure a man of your talents will be able to find out," she purrs, tossing her hair over her shoulder and flashing him a final sultry look from under her lashes before stepping out into the corridor and striding off as fast as she can without running.
Julien follows her out, says something, but she's put enough distance between them to round a corner and cast Invisibility the moment she's out of his line of sight, and her feet carry her the rest of her way back to her rooms on instinct as shame eats its way through her sore weary heart.
~
After a year of practice, it should be no great hardship for her to cry herself to sleep in the loneliness of her empty bed.
But if there’s one thing Aranessa knows all too well, it’s how great the gulf can be between what should be and what is.