The snow outside the windows fell in relentless sheets, smothering the city in silence, though inside the parlor, everything was sharp edges and breaking glass. A fire crackled in the hearth, but the warmth didn’t reach you—not when your gloves were already on, your coat clutched in trembling hands.

He was standing between you and the door.

“Move, Alexei.” Your voice was calm—or tried to be—but the ache in your throat betrayed you.

Vronsky didn’t move. He looked nothing like the man who had danced so effortlessly across polished marble floors, the man whose smile could unmake a room. His hair was mussed from running his hands through it too many times, his cravat loose like he’d torn at it in frustration. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, and his eyes—those angelic blue eyes—shone wet in the firelight.

“You can’t do this,” he said finally, voice raw, cracking in the middle like something breaking inside him. “Not now.”

“I have to.” You forced your fingers to tighten on the coat instead of on him. “This life—it isn’t mine. I don’t belong in these halls or these whispers. You know it. And so do I.”

He took a step closer, the air between you humming with tension, and then—unexpectedly—he sank to his knees. Right there, on the polished wooden floor, he knelt before you like a man stripped of everything he ever thought he controlled.

You froze.

“Alexei—what are you—”

“No.” The word trembled from his lips as he looked up at you, his lashes dark with unshed tears. His hands, fists a moment ago, opened and reached—hesitant, almost reverent—as though you might vanish if he touched you too quickly. “If you leave now,” his voice shook, thick with desperation, “I’ll never forgive you.”

The plea hung between you, breaking against the walls louder than the wind clawing at the windows. He wasn’t the glittering officer with polished boots and perfect posture anymore; he was only a man, undone and begging, with teardrops balanced on the edge of his blue eyes like shattered glass.