It was wrong from the start.

Wrong and shameless.

You know you are pushing your luck, you have been for a while. But your love is strong enough to make you both blind, ever since that fateful night when your hands brushed at the train station, it was as if you were reborn.

You are married but not to him. Not to the one your heart is yearning for. You are merely his mistress, in the shadows, doing your very best to hide it and keep your last shred of dignity intact.

You never loved your husband, you tried to learn to but it was an arranged marriage fuelled by your father’s desire to marry you to nobility.

You tried to love him, you did.

But he fades to nothing when you look at Alexei.