For a moment, the world seemed to fall silent.


    Even the sound of the rain softened into a gentle whisper.


    With a knowing nce, Jude thrust the umbre into Seth''s hand and scurried back to his own car to get out of the rain.


    Seth gripped the umbre and walked toward Noreen''s car, his calm, handsome face rippling with emotion.


    Noreen''s hand had just touched the door handle.


    "Don''t get out," Seth said before she could open it.


    His voice was strained, as if he hadn''t spoken in a long time. "It''s raining. You''ll get wet."


    Noreen''s fingers curled into her palm. She looked up at the man who was now standing right beside her.


    Dusk was settling, and a streetlight cast its glow from an angle, leaving Seth standing at the intersection of light and shadow.


    One side of his face was bathed in a soft light, the other shrouded in deep darkness.


    "Seth, what is all this?" Noreen finally asked.


    Her voice wasced with helplessness, but mostly, with annoyance.


    "This is the Joyner Mansion."


    "My identity here is Castle''s fiancée."


    His behavior was not just an inconvenience; it was a disturbance.


    It could cause problems for her, and she had to make him understand that.


    "Have you eaten dinner?" Seth asked, his questionpletely off-topic, though his tone was gentle.


    Noreen''s brow furrowed. "I made myself perfectly clear at the hospital. Is there any point to this?"


    Seth sighed, his voice raspy. "Then tell me, what should I do?"


    He waspletely out of ideas.


    That one short text message had made him think he saw a glimmer of hope.


    But she had refused to see him and thrown away the seafood soup he had simmered all night.


    She hadn''t even hesitated for a second as she drove past him.


    He truly had no other cards to y.


    "I told you, stop doing these meaningless things. With your credentials, you could find a better, younger, more aplished woman. If not Miss Lowell, then Miss Wilder, or any other woman..."


    "The point is, you don''t need to waste your time on me."


    Seth''s breathing grew heavy, his chest rising and falling in a long, slow rhythm. "Maybe it''s because I''ve fallen too hard for you," he said, his voice thick with self-deprecation.


    Jude had said simr things to him.


    He''d said that if Seth were willing to let go, women would be lining up for him.


    But what could he do?


    He only wanted Noreen.


    It had to be Noreen.


    Noreen stared into the misty distance. In the past, you had countless opportunities to prove what you just said, but you did nothing. That just means we were never meant to be." ''


    Perfect.


    The day before yesterday, she wanted to draw a line between them.


    Today, she was telling him they were never meant to be.


    She was throwing every single hurtful word he had ever deliberately said to her right back in his face.


    This was karma.


    This was exactly what he deserved.


    As soon as Noreen''s car drove away, Jude quickly got out of his own car and went to Seth.


    He hadn''t heard their conversation, but one look at Seth''s face told him everything. She''d probably stuck a few more knives in his heart.


    Seth seemed to have lost all his strength. He couldn''t even hold the umbre steady.


    Finally, his arm dropped to his side, and he let the rain drench himpletely.


    His heart felt gray and suffocatingly cold.


    It was as if the rain was falling directly into his soul.


    Jude was frantic.


    Seth''s cold hadn''t even fully healed, and here he was, pulling another one of his self-destructive stunts.


    "I told you you''d regret this! I told you


    to leave this morning, but no, your


    had to


    wait all day just so she could


    stab you in the heart a few more times?"


    Such a masochist.


    "I don''t regret it," he murmured.