He refused until Mara was present.
Sabine looked smaller without the certainty she had worn so elegantly for months. Her engagement ring was still on her hand.
“I loved you,” she said.
Cassian did not answer.
“I did. Whatever this became, that part was real.”
Mara’s expression did not change.
Sabine looked at Cassian. “Adrian found me after we got engaged. He knew about the old foundation records. He said if the trust ever reopened the file, I could be blamed for what he did years ago.”
“Were you innocent?” Cassian asked.
Sabine hesitated.
That was her answer.
“I signed things I should not have signed,” she whispered. “I was twenty-six. I was scared.”
“And now?”
Tears spilled down her face. “Now I was scared of losing you.”
Cassian looked through the interview-room window toward Elodie, who was sitting with Mara’s assistant, coloring on a legal pad because someone had found her a box of pencils.
“You were willing to lose her.”
Sabine flinched.
“I was never going to hurt her.”
“You tried to remove her from her home using my forged signature.”
“She would have been safe.”
“She was terrified.”
Sabine looked down.
Cassian’s voice remained calm. “You keep describing your intentions. I am describing your choices.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Sabine slowly pulled off the engagement ring and placed it on the table.
“I’m sorry.”
Cassian looked at it but did not touch it.
“I hope someday you understand what that sentence would have needed to mean before today.”
He left the ring where it was.
Adrian never asked to apologize.
He asked for a lawyer.
