SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Chapter 95

Three hours later, Rose gazed out the window of a private dining room in Montreal's most exclusive restaurant. Snow fell gently outside, illuminated by street lamps and café lights. Inside, candles flickered on th "You seem surprised to be enjoying yourself," Herod observed, watching her over the rim of his wine glass.

Rose turned from the window. "I am, a little. I haven't thought about anything but revenge for so long. It feels strange to just... exist."

"Vengeance is consuming," Herod agreed. "It leaves little room for ordinary pleasures."

"Is that why you collect books? To remember there's life beyond revenge?"

He considered this, "Perhaps. Though I began collecting long before Victoria Kane entered my life."

Rose studied him in the candlelight. Without the hard edges of their planning sessions, Herod Preston revealed different

facets, cultured, thoughtful, even charming in his precise way.

"Tell me about the brother you lost," she said softly.

Herod's expression tightened momentarily, then relaxed. "Charles was the better of us. Kinder. More idealistic. He believed in love, in goodness. I always saw

the darker side of human nature."

"And yet Victoria targeted him first."

"Because he was connected to what she loved most, her daughter." Herod swirled the wine in his glass. "The cruellest revenge strikes not at you directly, but at what you cherish."

Rose thought of Camille, of the Phoenix Grid, of how precisely

their attack had been aimed at what her sister valued most. "We're following her playbook, aren't we? Using Victoria's

own methods against her."

raw grief. We move with calculation, patience." "A dangerous

once have taken this as an insult Tonight,

closed to others. That people believe what they

to

constructed personas without question, who never looked for the truth beneath the performance. "I don't know," she admitted,

Herod suggested. "Who Rose Lewis is when the masks

arrived, exquisite plates of food too artful to immediately disturb. The waiter poured more wins - retreated, leaving them in their cocoon of

daughter. The supportive sister. The perfect fiancée. Sometimes I wonder if there's

Herod said with unexpected certainty.

to accept defeat. Those aren't masks, Rose.

Herod's eyes, her darkness wasn't something to hide

want the pretty lies,"

her look up from her

charged with meaning. Rose felt her pulse quicken. She was accustomed to inspiring desire in men, but always for the

his fork, considering his answer. "Because partnerships forged only in hatred rarely survive.

is there?" Rose challenged, though she already suspected

his fingers brushing hers in a touch too deliberate to be accidental.

her arm, a sensation both foreign and familiar. How long had it been since she'd felt genuine attraction, not calculated seduction? With

felt different. Unpredictable. Dangerous in ways that had

carefully, "that mixing

frighten me," Herod

question was a challenge, and Rose had never backed down from a challenge in her life. She turned her hand beneath his, their palms meeting, fingers

"No," she said simply.

eyes, a heat that matched what she felt building within herself. For a moment, they remained perfectly still, connected by that single point of contact, the air between them charged

suddenly

boundaries crossed, new territories explored. She w Herod appeared in the doorway, two glasses of whiskey in and.

shook her head. "No. Surprises, maybe, but not

"What surprises you?"